Soon, use any bank’s card at postal ATM

Soon, Chennai residents can use postal ATMs to withdraw money not only from their postal savings account, but from any bank account.

This will be possible once the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) accepts the proposal to have postal Automated Teller Machines (ATM) interoperable where postal customers could use debit cards of other banks. Earlier this week, the Department of Posts opened two more ATMs at St. Thomas Mount and Mylapore post offices. The first postal ATM was opened in T. Nagar post office last year.

Anna Road head post office and Tambaram post office will also have ATM facilities . In three months, the department plans to expand its ATM services to over 17 post offices, including those in Park Town, Avadi and Ambattur.

Officials of the Postal Department said once the ATMs are operational for a few months, RBI is expected to approve the proposal to allow postal account holders to use debit cards of other banks as well and vice versa.

As of now, only 50 postal account holders have debit cards. “With more ATMs being added, we are speeding up the process to issue personalised debit cards. At present, customers can get insta cards that will allow them to use ATMs till they get their debit cards,” said Mervin Alexander, Postmaster General (Chennai city region).

It takes about 3-4 weeks to get a postal debit card. The department plans to distribute about 2,500 cards soon, particularly to pensioners. While applications are being accepted for obtaining debit cards, customers can immediately get insta cards to carry out transactions.

Nearly 31.22 lakh postal saving account holders of Chennai city region would be able to use postal debit cards in any of the post offices networked with core banking solutions. Customers could soon avoid visits to post offices to carry out savings account transactions as e-post office and mobile banking facility are on the anvil.

Source : http://www.thehindu.com/