India Post Inks Deal To Deploy 1.5Cr RuPay Debit Cards; 5 Lakh Cards To be Delivered In 60 Days
When it comes to delivering results, then India Post Banking System is all set to create a new benchmark.
As per news coming in from India Post, around 5 lakh new RuPay enabled debit cards would be issued in the next 60 days. These new cards would only be issued to those customers of India Post, which have a saving accounts in any one of the 2600 main Post Offices where Core Banking Solutions (CBS) is already implemented.
As of now, 10,000 cards have already been issued.
India Post Deputy Director General L N Sharma said, “In the pilot project itself, we have issued 10,000 debit cards. Now, we are aiming to issue 5 lakh new cards to our customers in the next two months,”
India Post’s Goal: 1.5 Crore RuPay Debit Cards
India Post has around 34 crore saving account holders all over the country. After they decided to initiate full fledged banking platform, leveraging their vast pan-India network of 25,000 lakh branches, they inked a deal with CMS Info Systems to churn out 1.5 crore new RuPay enabled debit cards for their account holders.
It is being speculated that this deal was worth Rs 30 crore.
The operation is being executed in a phased manner, as the CBS enabled branches are being provided the first set of new debit cards; after which the remaining branches would be covered.
As inter-operability of India Post debit cards with the ATMs of other banks haven’t been setup, the users of these new RuPay enabled debit cards can only operate at 115 ATMs which have been opened so far.
The first such ATM for India Post account holders was opened in Chennai last year. 1000 such more ATMs would be inaugurated by March, 2016.
Additionally, India Post aims to convert all branches into CBS by March 31, 2016; which means that majority of these new debit card holders would be able to utilize India Post’s new banking paradigm.
Multiple Usage of RuPay Debit Card
It is the rural population which will be mainly benefited with the newly issued RuPay debit cards, as along with India Post, these cards can also be used to avail various Govt. sponsored schemes.
As per various officials, India Post account holders can use these new cards in schemes such as National ID, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) and Employee’s State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) as well.
CMS Info System, the company behind this massive operation of generating new debit cards is already a veteran in this niche, as they are World’s 5th largest ATM Cash Management Company, and India’s largest. As per their website, they are already managing 50% of all cash circulation happening in India, and they are generating more than 25 million new cards every year.
