Celent Model Bank Award: India Post: Banking System Moderization
Winner of Celent Model Bank 2017 Award for Financial Inclusion. India Post provides financial services to more than 550 million bank account holders across its large network of post offices. In order to promote greater access to financial services for India’s rural poor, India Post has implemented a new core banking system across more than 25,000 of its locations, replacing the manual paper-based account processing methods previously in use.
When project implementation is complete across its entire network, India Post will operate the largest branch network in the entire world, with 150,000 branches. (In contrast, the largest bank in the world by assets, China's Industrial and Commercial Bank, operates 16,200 branches.) More importantly, the core banking systems implementation will for the first time extend the reach of India Post's electronic banking solutions to the far reaches of its branch network, extending to the 800 million citizens living in India's rural areas.
India Post’s implementation of a new core banking system (CBS) platform was a massive project aimed at extending the reach and improving the quality of banking services available to the more than 800 million citizens living in India's rural areas.
A critical objective of the project was to digitize the paper-based account data of India Post maintained in its 150,000 branches and on-board the accounts to the new CBS platform, allowing for the introduction of new services in the rural areas.
As a result of this project, India Post now operates the largest branch network in India and is on track to run the largest branch banking operation in the world.
