The Department of Posts will be launching its international money order service which will enable money to be received at any place in the country from select countries.
MUMBAI: The Department of Posts will be launching its international money order service in March, which will enable money to be received at any place in the country from select countries within 48-72 hours.
"We are launching this service in March on a pilot basis. This will be launched in the four metros and depending on the result, later extended to other parts of the country as well," IMG Khan, Secretary, Department of Posts, told reporters here on Wednesday on the sidelines of a banking conference.
This service is IT-based and useful for remittances from abroad and these can be converted into money-orders while being delivered to the receivers. This service will facilitate the 'last-mile' contact, Khan said.
He expected this service to be availed by the Indian population present in large numbers in countries in the Gulf region, the UK, US, etc.
The charges will be different for different countries, he said.
The Postal Department was working on a corporate model for tariffs and one tie-up with the State Bank of India (SBI) has already been worked out, he said.
A special costing has been worked out for SBI based on weight slab and distribution pattern for a minimum business commitment of Rs two-crore per year. "But now this tie-up is giving us Rs24-crore," Khan said.
Priority treatment on some aspects is also being rendered to SBI and the same can be accorded to other clients as well, he said.
Khan said e-postal services, where any piece of paper can be scanned and print-outs can be taken, was now available in around 900 post-offices. "We will extend this service to 8,000 post-offices soon," he said.
The Postal Department and the IT Ministry were synergising their activities in the North-East in setting up common service centres.
"There are about 500 common service centres in the region but they suffer from the problem of lack of connectivity and broadband availability was limited. "The IT department has satellites and with their help, we hope to overcome this problem," he said.
A pilot project was on in Kerala to come out with a postal identity card which would be an electronic card with an embedded chip and can be used for all transactions.
This could help in fulfilling KYC norms, which now had assumed tremendous importance, especially for banking.
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