New Delhi:
Agriculture Insurance Company of India (AIC) and India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) have signed a Corporate Agency Agreement for distribution of AIC’s Crop Insurance products through the vast postal network of nearly 1.55 lakh post offices and 3 lakh postal employees across the country.
This strategic tie-up will be a win-win for both AIC and IPPB and will ultimately be beneficial mainly to the small and marginal farmers of the country at large.
AIC aims to provide insurance coverage and financial support to the farmers in the failure of any of the notified crop as a result of natural calamities, pests and diseases to restore their creditworthiness for the ensuing season; to encourage the farmers to adopt progressive farming practices, high value in-puts and higher technology; to help stabilize farm incomes, particularly in disaster years.
During FY 2019-20, AIC has achieved a gross direct premium Income of Rs. 9,361 crore, covering more than 1 crore farmers under its various agriculture insurance schemes.
IPPB has made steady progress by foraying into life insurance during the year. IPPB created a dedicated team focusing on third party products to boost the Bank’s fee from distribution while offering product choices to our customers. It went live with life insurance products in December 2019 through a tie-up and is distributing IRDA approved POSP Life Insurance Products (Group Term Life & POS Goal Suraksha) through its network of 650 Branches.
In a significant push to expanding access to financial services to unbanked and underbanked customers in India, IPPB had earlier announced that its total customer base has crossed 3.6 crore and it has completed over Rs 38,500 crore financial transactions cumulatively till September 15. These milestones are noteworthy considering the Bank launched its operations just two years back on September 1, 2018.
Total no. of customers added during lockdown period by the IPPB is 1.22 crore. The top three circles in terms of customer additions are Bihar (nearly 36 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (20.4 lakh), Tamil Nadu (10.8 lakh) respectively.
In a strong boost to digital payment methods and channels, Aadhaar Enabled Payment Services (AePS) transactions for IPPB have shown an uptrend during the period of lockdown and unlock totaling to Rs 5,362 crore and 2.52 crore in volume terms.
In terms of number of AePS transactions, the top 3 circles are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat. While Uttar Pradesh recorded around 61.7 lakh transactions, Bihar and Gujarat have totaled to approximately 20 lakh and nearly 16.9 lakh transactions respectively.
In value terms, the top 3 circles are Uttar Pradesh (Rs 1,151 crore), Andhra Pradesh (Rs 492 crore), and Telangana (Rs 469 crore).
Total no. of customers added during lockdown period is 1.22 crore. The top 3 circles in terms of customer additions are Bihar (nearly 36 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (20.4 lakh), Tamil Nadu (10.8 lakh) respectively.
AePS transactions have helped provide doorstep banking services to Divyangs, Old Age Pensioners, Infirm, Sick and Elderly. DBT benefits have transferred under PMGKY (Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana) and beneficiaries have been served by the local Post office through AePS on IPPB platform.
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