India Post Deploys WhatsApp To Power Financial Inclusion

NEW DELHI: The proliferation of digital technologies has forced an amazing and profound makeover of India’s financial services landscape. India Post joined this transformation in 2018 with the launch of the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB). The idea was to leverage the humongous network comprising of 1.55 lakh post offices and around 3 lakh postal employees to reach the unbanked and underbanked. Its footprint has spread nationally and the IPPB serves over 5 crore customers in 37 states and union territories. Its phygital model (Physical together with Digital) has pioneered the idea of doorstep banking through its network of 650 branches and 136,000 banking access points. And central to this strategy is the proverbial Dakia. To help motivate them as they undertake this task over and above their main business of delivering mail the IPPB recruited the services of the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change at Ashoka University. They deployed the use of WhatsApp as a communication tool to both explain the challenges and enable peer motivation. We spoke to Pooja Haldea a behavioural scientist and co-lead of the project at the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change.