India Post ATMs to dot Thiruvananthapuram landscape
A model of the Automated Teller Machine centre to be opened by the Postal Department.
Automated
teller machines (ATMs) are no longer the monopoly of the banking sector.
A year ago, the Postal Department too introduced the machine to its
customers as part of a modernisation programme. The district will
shortly join a select group of places in the country to house ATMs of
the department.
In the initial
phase, ATMs will be installed at the GPO in the city and sub post
offices at Poojappura, Neyyattinkara, and Attingal. The facility will be
provided in some other post offices in the city and also at
Kottarakara, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad,
Kozhikode and Kannur later. Work had commenced to set up the machines at
the GPO and Neyyattinkara, Assistant Postmaster General, Kerala Circle,
K.V Vijayakumar told The Hindu. The machine would become functional within a month, he added
Initially the
facility would benefit 11.77 lakh postal savings account holders in the
city and after the ongoing Core Bank Solution process initiated by the
department gets integrated with other banks, it would become
interoperable giving access to bank account holders too.
The core
banking facility enables customers to operate their accounts and avail
themselves of account-elated services from any of the networked post
offices. It would also provide postal saving account holders online
banking and mobile banking facilities, Officer on Special Duty, Kerala
Circle, Ravindranath, said.
The
department’s scheme of transferring money instantly through mobile
phone, he said, was getting good patronage with nearly 200 people using
the facility monthly. “When we launched the scheme a year ago, there
were not many takers. In the first three months, the number of people
opted to use the facility was below 10. Now, we were able to carryout
more than 200 transactions every month,” Mr. Vijayakumar said.
Source : http://www.thehindu.com/
