Frequently Asked Question about POSB in Finacle
1. Can the new Finacle application handle automatic transfer of funds between accounts (electronictransfer of funds between accounts)?
Yes, Finacle supports all modes of electronic transfer of funds like NEFT, ECS, and RTGS. Interbank and Intra bank transfers are in scope of CBS project.
2. Certificates (NSC & KVP) being digitalized as a part of CBS project? What type of schemes will be digitalized?
All (schemes) types of accounts will be digitized as a part of CBS project; even discontinued schemes will be stored in the centralized server after digitalization. So, digitalized & manual certificates will definitely be migrated to the new Finacle software. The idea is to have all accounts in digitized form in the new software system.
New certificates will be issued using Finacle software.
3. Explain the concept of CPC with respect to PLI and CBS.
CPCs or Circle Processing Centres are envisioned to do all bulk operations related to accounts opening and processing. CPC will perform tasks like scanning of documents, updating account details, KYC check etc.
For CBS, 22 CPCs are planned across India, one for each circle.
The standard requirement area of CPC is 1000sqft (for POSB) to begin with and will increase (along with staff) as the volume of work increases. Circles may have to identify space that could be scalable in future based on the volume of accounts to be handled.
4. Will there be a single window (URL) for Banking and Insurance transactions?
No, banking transactions will be maintained/ operated through Finacle software and insurance transactions will be handled in McCamish software. Since Finacle and McCamish are two different softwares with different architecture two different URLs will be provided for banking and insurance operations. But these URLs will be maintained in a single location of CSI.
5. Are Finacle reports customizable?
Yes, most of the reports are customizable according to the requirements of the post office. However one cannot add new fields to extract reports. E.g. if Date of Birth is not listed in the list of items of a report, a user cannot add Date of birth to the report.
6. What features of CBS will be available in the RICT device?
RICT device will have a mobile application version of core Finacle product (Banking App) as the banking application. Minimal tasks like performing acceptance or payment of money transactions and some non-financial transactions like update of contact no. etc. can also be in RICT application by the EDBO.
RICT device can operate in two modes – Online and Offline mode. In Online mode the application will be interacting directly with the central server, while in offline mode transactions will be stored in the RICT hardware. These transactions will be synced to the server when the RICT application goes online.
Offline mode will be limited functionality in comparison to online mode.
7. Can CPC agents do financial transactions from the CPC centre?
No, only post offices (branch offices) will be performing financial transactions on accounts. CPC can update the master data (address, nomination details etc.) of the customer.
Ability to do transactions is based on user rights, user rights are based on the role provided to the user. So, users will be able to do transactions if his/her user id has rights to do the same. As per policy CPC users will not be having financial transactional rights attached to their user ids.
8. Can customer register complaints in the CBS application?
Yes, customers can register complaints into CBS application using any of the interface channels available.
Channels – IVR, Internet banking, Mobile banking, Post offices etc.
9. Who will be the owner of physical documents submitted by customers and how will they be stored?
What is being planned for electronic document management?
Department of posts will continue to own the account opening form and other documents submitted by the customer as a part of KYC.
These documents will be initially stored at the CPC for POSB and PLI customers. As the volume of these documents increases they will be shifted to ware houses of Department of Post. Department of Post is planning to either lease or own warehouses at different locations of India for the storage of physical documents.
ECMS application will be used to manage electronic documents. Account opening form and other documents for all types of accounts (SB, RD, TD, & Certificates etc.) will be scanned at the CPC, stored in the ECMS application. These scanned documents will be linked against respective customer details.
10. Does the postmaster need to fill up all fields of account opening form during the account creation process?
No, only mandatory fields need to be filled by the postmasters or postal assistants working at the SB counter. Non mandatory details can be filled at the CPC from the documents collected at the SB counters.
11. Can the new CBS application calculate the RD agents commission amounts automatically?
Yes, the Finacle application has the ability to calculate agents’ commission.
12. Instant Money Order and MO Videsh part of CBS application?
No, products like Instant Money order and MO Videsh will be incorporated into Core System Integrator (CSI) application.
13. What about old accounts which do not satisfy KYC norms, will they be migrated to CBS?
Yes, all accounts irrespective of their KYC status will be migrated to CBS. The idea is to have allaccounts in the centralized CBS server. Updates/additional documentation can be collected later from the customer. The expectation is customers will provide the required KYC documents once theyare positively influenced by the additional facilities provided by the department post CBSimplementation. KYC has been made mandatory as a process and also in the application. So, if the customer wants to use these features (like ATM, internet banking etc.) they will have to provide required KYC documents.
14. Whose responsibility is it to put cash in ATMs?
Cash status at any ATM can be monitored using the ATM monitoring software application provided by CBS vendor. The application will highlight the ATMs when the amount of cash in the ATM bin falls below the prescribed level. The person/department monitoring the application need to co-ordinatewith the nearest post office and the Cash Management vendor to get the ATM replenished with cash.
So, while the cash will be provided by post office. The actual transfer of cash to the ATM machine
will be handled by Cash Management Vendor.
15. What is the role envisaged for SBCO? Will they be disbanded?
No, SBCO will not be disbanded. They will continue to be the audit organisation of POSB. It is expected that going further their roles will be redefined. Existing work like ledger agreement etc. might be discontinued in the future. CBS software will have an online SBCO module for checking transactions with physical vouchers.
16. Will customers continue to get passbooks or only statements will be provided?
Customers will continue to have passbooks.
17. Does the ECMS application support any language other than English (multilingual)? Will ECMS be used only for CBS and PLI?
No, even though ECMS application can scan documents written in any language, it does not support multilingual syntax for other operations. Data entry and storage features of the application are facilitated only in English.
The plan is to use ECMS application as the data storage for other departments as well. Personneldepartment might be using it to store service records of employees (HRMS application).
18. What happens if some SB entries (postings) are missing for migrated accounts?
Post offices are expected to keep their data updated till the date of migration. In case some entries (postings) are still missing then the application have the back dated entry feature to support data entry of past data. This feature can only be used for missed postings which less than 30 days old. If any posting is more than 30 days old then its financial impact need to be calculated manually outside of the application and the final figure can be posted as a deposit or withdrawal entry with appropriate remarks.
19. Which type of accounts will be migrated? From where will the data be taken for migration into theCBS environment? When will the actual data migration happen, in weekdays or over the weekends?
What will happen post data migration?
All open accounts will be migrated to the new centralized server.
The data migration pickup points is discussed in detail below1 –
Data pick up points at HOs on Sanchay Post:
- All Sanchay Post data for HO migration to be picked from HO database
- Discontinued products data will be picked from manual registers
Data pick up points at SO on Sanchay Post:
- All SP data – Centralized & Decentralized data for SO migration to be picked from SO database
- Discontinued products data will be picked from manual registers
Data pick up points at Manual SOs:
All Centralized products data to be picked from SOSB; Only transaction data
Decentralized & Discontinued products data will be picked from manual registers; Signature scan all schemes; Master dataMost likely data migration will happen over the weekend. If it happens over the weekdays then it will be done in non-working hours and after the closure of business of the concerned office.
All transaction and master data will be migrated to the new CBS database.
Post data migration all POSB transactions will be done over the CBS application from the very next day. To facilitate smooth migration into new environment Infosys will provide 2 days of active support. Also, 7 days of acceptance testing with active support from Champion user and Infosys team will be done at the concerned post office.
Post 7 days queries will be handled through Help desk of CBS (manned by Infosys team)
20. Will standing instructions be migrated.
Yes, all features of the accounts will be migrated into the new system. Standing instructions will also be migrated along with the other account details.
21. Can I use the ATMs provided by the post office to withdraw money from other bank ATMs?
The approval from RBI is to support only ‘on us’ transactions through ATMs. We need to prove our capability to handle ATM related transactions in a closed environment and then migrate to both ‘on us’ and ‘of us’ transactions.
‘On us’ transactions means ATM cards issued by department of post will be supported only on POSB ATMs. POSB ATMs will act as silo ATM connected to the DoP CBS environment. So, DoP customers will not be able to use the ATMs to withdraw money from outside of DoP network (other bank ATMs).
After approval from RBI, India post will collaborate with VISA, Mastercard along with RuPay of NPCI. These collaborations will facilitate withdrawal facility through VISA and MasterCard network (supporting ‘of us’ transactions). It is expected that DoP will get the approval post the pilot implementation. Post that POSB customers can transact in other bank’s ATMs and vice versa.
22. How to handle cases if a customer comes up with a valid passbook but the account has not been migrated to CBS for some reason or other?
There is a concept of Office Account in Finacle; this facility can be used to facilitate such transactions. Ideally offices should digitalize all accounts but if for some reason an account has been missed and the customer comes up with a valid passbook. The postmaster can make the payment after validating the authenticity of the passbook and debit the Office Account of the post office.
23. Who will sign off the data from the post offices?
It will be the responsibility of the post master of the concerned post office. However Postmaster has to verify/agree with the SBCO before signing off the data. Postmasters also need to confirm that the data migrated to the CBS is the same as their Sanchay Post office data (at pre migrated stage).
Infosys will generate various reports to help the post master in confirming this.
24. Can the same KYC be reused across various schemes?
Yes. So, if a customer has already an account for which KYC documents have been submitted then he or she need not submit his or her KYC document once again for opening any new account of same or different category.
25. How will the consolidations of HO happen when the SO is not yet into the CBS environment but the HO is on CBS platform?
SOSB at the HO will not be disbanded completely until all SOs reporting to it migrate to CBS environment. The SOSB staff will continue to feed data into Sanchay Post (SP) as per the current process and get the consolidation from SP. Finacle reports will provide the sum of HO transactions.
These needs to be integrated manually until all sub post offices under a CBS HO have migrated to the CBS environment.
