THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:More than 10 lakh treasury savings bank account holders will get ATM, Internet and mobile banking facilities shortly. This is expected to help the Treasury Department to gain a significant growth in deposits.
Treasury director Jafar A M said the department is awaiting the Finance Department’s nod to roll out net banking. Security audit of the mobile app developed by National Informatics Centre is on will be launched soon.
Modalities for the ATM facility, to be offered in partnership with Federal Bank, have been worked out and will be sent to the RBI for approval.
Of late, the department has been trying to get more government employees to open an salary account with it. A separate interest scheme is being worked out for employees who are willing to withdraw their salary in instalments at specific intervals.
A new category - Employees Treasury Savings Bank account - has been launched for this. In the pilot phase, the scheme will be available for the staff of of Finance, Treasury and General Administration departments.
The department hopes that new-generation banking facilities will attract more individual and institutional accounts. At present, most of the savings bank account holders are government employees and pensioners and the general public constitute only about 2 lakh.
Meanwhile, the pension portal launched by the department is getting a cold response. Only about 50,000 of the 5 lakh pensioners have registered with the portal.
The portal www.treasury.kerala.gov.in/pension provides break-up details of pension amount, account statement and assistance for income tax payment. The department has now launched a campaign to popularise the portal.
The department provides a higher interest rate for fixed deposits when compared to banks. Seven per cent interest is given for deposits between six months and one year and 8.50 per cent for deposits above one year. An additional 0.50 per cent is offered for senior citizens in both categories. The interest rate for savings bank deposit was slashed recently from 4.50 per cent to 4 per cent.