The postal department has applied for government permission to operate specialised banking mainly to the unbanked rural people, as post-boxes now look to be a thing of the past.
Officials said under the nomenclature 'Postal Bank' the outmoded mailing department aims to serve in small saving, micro-credit, small and medium enterprise (SME) financing, and running various other financing services.
The Posts and Telecommunications Division this week forwarded an application of Postal Department to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for approval allowing them to launch banking.
Officials said presently the postal department is running financial services mainly like savings banking. It has ordinary savings bank account and fixed-deposit services. Ordinary savers get 7.5 per cent returns while term depositors 13.24 per cent.
They said the department is being run under the Post Act 1898. The government amended the act in 2010, creating scope for postal department to provide remittance-transfer services, banking services, postal life insurance either individually or on contract with other organisations.
Following the amendment of the act the postal department has already introduced postal cash-card and electronic money-transfer services.
A senior official at the Posts and Telecommunications Division told the FE most of the postal departments in the world are nowadays providing financial services. Countries like the Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Japan, China, the Philippines, Brazil, Germany, South Korea, and India have already launched Postal Bank, providing various financial services.
He said a significant number of people of the country, especially in the rural areas, are deprived of banking services. The postal department can help include them in financial services since it has post offices and e-post centres in the countryside.
The official said presently there are some 8,500 post offices which can be used as bank branches once Postal Bank is launched.
When contacted, director-general of Bangladesh Post Office Prabash Ch Saha told the FE Tuesday they have plan to run a specialised bank to serve a vast multitude of unbanked people.
"People still trust the post office as it is a government organisation. If we can bring the un-banked people into the banking system, a big amount of money will be added in the public exchequer instead of lying idle in people's hand," he said.
Asked why they have planned to start a full-fledged bank, the DG said most of the post offices in the world have opened such banks. "If we can collect the money from people and provide it to the exchequer, government's dependence on banking sector will be lessened, paving the way for investment."
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