The currency dispensers are being launched for the Department

Anticipation of getting a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India, the Department of Posts will roll out its own ATMs, with the first of them set to be functional on February 5 across three cities.

The currency dispensers are being launched for the Department’s more than 26 crore savings bank account holders.

“The first of the ATMs would be rolled out simultaneously in New Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore,” Kapil Sibal, Minister for Communications and IT, said, after inaugurating a data centre for the postal department.

Following which, the postal department is planning to rollout 3,000 ATMs. About 1,000 machines would be introduced in the first year. The remaining 2,000 would be rolled out within six months to one year after the initial phase of rollout.

The department would also rollout 1.35 lakh micro ATMs, thereby empowering its rural post offices across the country, secretary, Department of Posts, Padmini Gopinath said.

According to Gopinath, the Reserve Bank of India permits companies to operate ATMs in a “closed loop”, and depending on its success the regulator would provide interoperability with other banks.

“We are expecting RBI to provide us inter‐operability in six months after commencing the closed loop operations,” Gopinath added.

Data centre

Earlier, the minister inaugurated a new data centre for Department of Posts, jointly setup with Reliance Communications at the telecom company’s corporate headquarters in Navi Mumbai.

The 3,500 square feet data centre can house 80 racks and has a capacity of 250 terabytes. It also has a 250 TB disaster recovery centre in Mysore.

“This is the milestone in the modernisation programme of the postal department, with services such as insurance, savings bank, speed post and money order all being computerised,” Sibal added. 

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