India Post joins the Eurogiro community
Please welcome India Post as a member in the Eurogiro community, and an expansion of the Eurogiro payment gateway into the country of India.
India Post plans to launch its remittance service via the Eurogiro network in October 2009. Across its vast network of post office branches, the Post will provide its customers with cash and account transfers for both incoming and outgoing payments.
Indians working abroad will now be able to send payments for either cash pickup at a postal branch, or request to send cash directly to their relatives at their doorstep. India Post will provide account-to-account international payments like the banks in India, and they also plan to provide an outbound payment service with Eurogiro members for cash receipt.
India Post is a 100% government-owned postal and financial institution, established over 150 years ago to promote postal services and small savings development in India. The strength of India Post lies in its vast network and the end-to-end rural reach it provides in retail and cash management.
The Post has a vast network of 155,035 post offices (as on 31st March 2008), and is the largest postal organisation in the world. As a result it has become a popular mechanism for last mile delivery of both private commercial and governmental services.
India Post as a retail outlet has been increasing in popularity. The rapidly changing Indian economic scenario - liberalization, globalization, and a widespread technological revolution –has given rise to the need for efficient delivery of a variety of services. The Post provides not only universal postal services, but it also serves as a useful channel for other socially significant schemes like small savings, payment of Pension, Postal Life Insurance, especially for rural India.
The Post Office Savings Bank is the oldest and largest banking institution in India. It has over 200 million savings accounts and provides deposit facilities at over 154,000 branches spread out throughout India. In addition to its current deposit based activities, it also distributes a number of investment options including mutual funds, pension funds and non-life insurance.
The country of India is the largest receiver of international remittances. The World Bank estimates that US $45 billion of remittances were received by India in 2008, compared to $27 billion in 2007. In its annual report of 2008-09, the RBI said the global economic downturn had not dampened the flow of remittances to India, owing to many factors such as depreciation of the rupee, hike in interest rate ceilings on NRI deposits and uncertainties in oil prices.
For more information on connecting with India Post via the Eurogiro network, please contact Ms Manisha Sinha at [email protected]
