National Current Affairs
India Post Payments Bank 8th Foundation Day
- 02 Sep 2025
- 2 min read
Why in News?
India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) celebrated its 8th Foundation Day on 1st September 2025, reaffirming its commitment to providing inclusive, accessible, and affordable banking services at the last mile.
Key Points
- About: IPPB, established in 2018 under the Department of Posts, is a government-backed initiative focused on promoting financial inclusion and advancing Digital India.
- Scope: It utilizes over 1.64 lakh post offices, 1.90 lakh Postmen and Gramin Dak Sevaks (GDS), serving more than 12 crore customers, processes billions of digital transactions, and offers doorstep banking in rural, semi-urban, and remote areas.
- Objective: IPPB aims to digitally empower every Indian and pave the way for economic independence. It strives to deliver banking services to the last mile, ensuring that even rural and underserved populations are financially included.
- Services: It has expanded into areas such as direct benefit transfer disbursements, pension payments, credit facilitation, and insurance and investment products in partnership with institutions.
- New services like Digismart digital savings accounts, Premium Aarogya Savings Account, Aadhaar-based face authentication, RuPay virtual debit card, AePS-enabled payments, cross-border remittances, and Bharat BillPay integration have enhanced customer convenience.
Payment Bank
- About: A payments bank is a differentiated bank, offering a limited range of products.
- A committee headed by Dr. Nachiket Mor recommended the setting up of a 'Payments Bank' to cater to the lower-income groups and small businesses.
- Features:
- It can accept demand deposits only, that is, savings and current accounts, not time deposits.
- Payment banks are restricted to holding a maximum balance of Rs. 2,00,000 (Rupees Two lakh only) per individual customer.
- Payment Banks cannot accept Non-Resident Indian (NRI) deposits.
- The Payment Banks cannot set up subsidiaries to undertake non-banking financial services activities.
- It can accept demand deposits only, that is, savings and current accounts, not time deposits.
