The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently gave a licence to India Post to function as a payments bank. Does it change anything for the people? Post offices in India have already been working as payments banks. Individuals open accounts, deposit and withdraw money by cash or cheques and receive payments through them. All these transactions are meticulously recorded manually in their passbook. Post offices do not provide any loans or carry out any credit transaction. This has been in operation for more than a century and much before the RBI came into existence. So, what would change after the RBI’s licence?
The Department of Post (DoP) had earlier applied to RBI for a banking licence for its fully-owned subsidiary, India Post. The DoP’s assets and liability position, as revealed by its balance sheet, was far from satisfactory for RBI’s comfort to allow the grant of a banking licence to the parent organization. Its annual deficit kept increasing from Rs.5,339 crore in 2013-14 to Rs.6,378 crore in 2014-15 to Rs.6,665 crore in the budget of 2015-16. As a result, the banking licence had to be granted to a separate entity, India Post, with distinct assets and liabilities of its own. The RBI’s licence for payments bank to India Post should, therefore, separate the banking business from various other services provided by DoP, which may or may not run on a commercial basis. A commercial focus on the banking business is desirable for viability and efficiency.