India Post Payments Bank launches ‘Fincluvation’

Context

India Post Payments Bank recently launched Fincluvation, a platform to promote innovative solutions in collaboration with fintech startups to accelerate financial inclusion among the underserved and unserved population.

About

What is Fincluvation?

The first-of-its-kind industry initiative, Fincluvation would create a powerful platform to mobilize the start-up community towards building meaningful financial products aimed at financial inclusion.
The country has made rapid strides in FINTECH space in Global Tech world leading innovations like UPI, Aadhaar.
- The combination of IPPB’s banking stack, DoP’s trustworthy doorstep service network and the techno-functional acumen of start-ups can deliver unmatched value to the citizens of the country.
Fincluvation will be a permanent platform of IPPB to co-create inclusive financial solutions with participating start-ups.
IPPB and DoP collectively serve close to 430 million customers through neighbourhood post office.
Further, it is one of the largest and trusted postal networks in the world with over 400,000 post office employees and Gramin Dak Sevaks.
India Post will invite startups to co-create solutions on the platform. The government will offer up to ?3 crore to support the entire journey from the proof-of-concept stage to the final product.
Startups are encouraged to develop solutions aligned with any of the following tracks-
- Creditization - Develop Innovative & Inclusive credit products aligned with the use cases of target customers and take them to their doorsteps through Postal network.
- Digitization - Bring convenience through convergence of traditional services with Digital Payment Technologies such as making the traditional Money Order service as Interoperable Banking service.
- Any Market-led solutions that can help solve any other problem relevant to IPPB and/or DoP in serving the target customers

Benefits

Fincluvation will engage startups to participate, ideate, develop and market intuitive and tailored products and services for the customers.
- It also encourages startups to develop solutions relating to creditization, digitization & more.
Further, fincluvation can help in meeting the varied and complex needs of the consumers through thoughtful, empathetic product design, and rapid prototyping among users.
- With Fincluvation would also help develop technology-led financial solutions for India.
Fincluvation will also allow the start-ups to work with IPPB and DoP experts to develop solutions and conduct pilots using the postal network and IPPB’s technology stack.
Fincluvation mentors will work closely with startups to tweak products to customer needs and align the go-to-market strategies with operating models of India Post.
Startups will also be able to use the physical infrastructure that the department of posts has across the country.

India Post Payments Bank (IPPB)

India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) was launched on September 1, 2018 under the Department of Posts, Ministry of Communication with 100% equity owned by Government of India.
The bank has been set up with the vision to build the most accessible, affordable and trusted bank for the common man in India.
The fundamental mandate of IPPB is to remove barriers for the unbanked and under-banked and reach the last mile leveraging a network comprising 160,000 post offices (145,000 in rural areas) and 400,000 postal employees.
IPPB’s reach and its operating model is built on the key pillars of India Stack - enabling Paperless, Cashless and Presence-less banking in a simple and secure manner at the customers' doorstep, through a CBS-integrated smartphone and biometric device.
Leveraging frugal innovation and with a high focus on ease of banking for the masses, IPPB delivers simple and affordable banking solutions through intuitive interfaces available in 13 languages.
IPPB is committed to provide a fillip to a less cash economy and contribute to the vision of Digital India.
India will prosper when every citizen will have equal opportunity to become financially secure and empowered.