About this stamp
Banking at the Doorstep
India Post issued this ₹5 stamp on 30 January 2019 on Financial Inclusion: bringing financial services to low-income households and small businesses, which the government has long pursued. The brochure notes that most small businesses had no link with formal finance and that close to half of India’s rural and urban population did not have a working bank account.
From the Post Office Savings Bank to IPPB
The Post Office Savings Bank, founded in 1873 to encourage thrift long before commercial banks spread across India, is described by India Post as the sheet anchor of financial inclusion, with about 155,000 post offices. On 15 August 2016 the Prime Minister announced the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB). Two pilot branches opened on 30 January 2017, and the bank was launched nationwide on 1 September 2018.
Its motto is “Aapka Bank Aapke Dwar” (your bank at your doorstep): more than three lakh postmen and Gramin Dak Sevaks offer assisted banking at people’s homes, especially to the rural poor and the elderly. IPPB opens accounts in minutes, uses QR cards and biometric authentication, helps small merchants accept cashless payments and runs financial literacy programmes. By 14 January 2019 it had grown from 350 branches and 3,250 access points to 1,19,640 access points.
On the Stamp
The design by Satish Gujral is an abstract composition in which the rupee symbol sits among mechanical, circuit-like shapes. Kamleshwar Singh designed the first day cover and brochure. 500,000 stamps were printed by wet offset at the Security Printing Press, Hyderabad.
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