The India Post Payments Bank will be set up 650 branches by the end of April 2018 communications minister, Manoj Sinha told the parliament. The deadline for achieving that target had earlier been set for September 2017. According to the minister, India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) is anticipated to acquire approximately 80 million customers in a span of five years from its launch. Why was the original deadline missed? While there is no mention of the delay in the minister's reply, delays in system integration may have played a role. EIT Services India Pvt. Ltd was brought on board as a system integrator as late as 14 August 2017, less than a month from the deadline. Will the new deadline be adhered to? With less than a month and a half to go and only around 528 managers on board for the proposed 650 branches, how does India Post plan to get the remaining personnel? Shouldn't the recruitment process be over by now, followed by extensive training? All of this brings us to question whether the new deadline can even be met. Too ambitious a target The target of acquiring 80 million customers over 5 years does raise some questions: 80 million acquired over a span of 5 years means the IPPB will have to add more than 1.33 million customers per month. Given the competition in the market, and that Payments Banks are not quite banks, that seems unlikely. This massive acquisition target will as of now fall on only 650…
