• India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), an entity under the Department of Posts (DoP), has launched Fincluvation.

• It is a joint initiative to collaborate with the fintech startup community to co-create and innovate solutions for financial inclusion. 

• Fincluvation is aimed at creating a powerful platform to mobilise the startup community towards building meaningful financial products aimed at financial inclusion.

• Under this initiative, startups are being invited to participate, ideate, develop and market intuitive and tailored products and services that can be taken to the customers.

India Post Payments Bank (IPPB)

• India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) was set up under the department of post with 100 per cent equity owned by the government of India. 

• It was first started as a pilot project on January 30, 2017 in Ranchi (Jharkhand) and Raipur (Chhattisgarh). 

• IPPB was launched on September 1, 2018. It has expanded its strength across the country covering Post Offices, through a network of 650 IPPB branches/controlling offices, working on a hub and spoke model.

• The bank has been set up with the vision to build the most accessible, affordable and trusted bank for the common man in India. 

• IPPB aims to provide every household in India an access to efficient banking services and enable them to become financially secure and empowered.

• The fundamental mandate of IPPB is to remove barriers for the unbanked and under-banked and reach the last mile leveraging a network comprising 160,000 Post Offices (145,000 in rural areas) and four lakh postal employees. 

• IPPB’s reach and its operating model is built on the key pillars of India Stack — enabling paperless, cashless and presence-less banking in a simple and secure manner at the customers’ doorsteps, through a CBS-integrated smartphone and biometric device. 

• With a high focus on ease of banking for the masses, IPPB delivers simple and affordable banking solutions through intuitive interfaces available in  many languages. 

• IPPB is committed to provide a fillip to a less cash economy and contribute to the vision of Digital India. 

• Postmen & Gramin Dak Sevaks (GDS) have been provided the right training, technology and the devices, to convert them from just postal service providers to mobile bankers who are fully capable of providing doorstep banking services to the customers of IPPB as well as of other banks, who find accessing their banks difficult.

• The enablement of Post Offices to provide banking services has reduced the average ‘distance to a rural banking service point’ from 5-6 km (rural bank branch infrastructure) to 2.5 km (average distance to a Post Office).

Other key points on IPPB:

• Nearly 50 per cent of account holders are women. 

• Around 98 per cent of accounts opened at doorsteps of customers.

• 90 per cent of customers are from rural areas.

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