Mumbai: The Indian postman may no longer be just the purveyor of letters, postcards, parcels and telegrams. His role may get substantially enlarged if the department of posts manages to implement a proposal currently on the drawing board to introduce a pre-paid, omnibus card.
According to the proposal, consumers who buy the omnibus card would be able to pay all their bills - be it electricity, telephone or credit card - at their doorstep to the postman, who would double up as a bill collector. The postman would carry a hand-held device to swipe the card held by the customer. At the end of the day, he will connect the device to a computer at the post office, which will allocate the credits to appropriate accounts.
Department of posts officials say the card could also serve as an ATM card and debit card at a later stage - but in the beginning stage it would just be a card, which could be loaded with cash at the post office. The postal department had contacted a few banks, like ICICI Bank and UTI Bank, to utilise their ATM network. Presently, the department is in talks with a Mumbai-based firm for technical and gadgetry requirements. The service may be introduced some time next fiscal as a pilot project in the 202 post offices across four states where e-post is being launched. To start the project, these post offices would start collecting bills over the counter. There are a number of marketing and infrastructure issues to be sorted out before the proposal can be implemented successfully, says an official. This consists of convincing entities like electricity and telephone departments as well as retail stores to tie up with the postal department for such a novel facility, especially since it involves a lot of free float of funds. The ultimate aim is to become the issuer of a card that could bring in huge volumes of business to the postal department and also convenience to customers by leveraging the unparalleled network of post offices in the country.
A senior official says across-the-counter retail financial services have become a major business development initiative for the department. The success achieved here has prompted it to expand its portfolio of financial services over the years. The department is now planning to computerise the savings bank operations; soon savings bank account-holders would be able to avail of ATM facilities as well. Debit cards would also be introduced by the yearend in collaboration with Mastercard and Visa, he said. The department has a network of 1,54,000 post offices - including 23,000 in urban centres - across India.
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