Standing in queues for long hours for withdrawing money from the Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) or checking balance will be a thing of the past, with the Department of Posts (DoP) deciding to launch 29 ATMs at head post offices in the Vijayawada region soon.
Buoyed by the good response from an ATM service that was inaugurated at a post office in One Town in Vijayawada on an experimental basis, the department has taken up Core Banking Solution (CBS) system under the India Post Project.
The POSB customers can now withdraw money anytime (a maximum of Rs. 25,000 in a day and Rs. 10,000 at a time), transfer funds to own and others’ savings accounts, make balance inquiries and get mini-statements. Customers could operate their accounts and avail account-related services from any post office in the country which is equipped with CBS system with the help of postal debit cards.
Krishna, Guntur, West Godavari, Prakasam and Nellore districts in Andhra Pradesh and Khammam in Telangana comes under Vijayawada region.
Of the 29 ATMs, two permanent facilities at Buckinghampet in Vijayawada and Jangareddygudem in West Godavari are ready for launch, according to officials.
They said Infosys in Bangalore was extending technical assistance for the project. Using software called ‘Finacle’, the technical team will be overseeing cash transactions and the DoP has entered into a seven years agreement in this regard.
The Directorate in New Delhi will monitor transactions online everyday. Officials said the CBS would improve the performance of DoP by facilitating ATM banking and Internet, mobile and phone banking bringing additional revenues. National Institute for Smart Governance (NISG) is also assisting the department in ensuring better services to customers.
Post Master General M. Sampath Kumar said the DoP has already provided required infrastructure facilities and installation of machines was to be completed.
“We are hopeful of rolling out services from January,” he said, adding that ATM cards were issued to a majority of customers. He said customers were inquiring with the department on availability of core bank services with other banks.
