New Delhi, March 27 (IANS): Communications Minister Manoj Sinha on Monday said 26 banking and non-banking companies have shown interest to collaborate with India Post Payments Bank.

"The Department is in various stages of discussions with them. A decision on formal partnerships will be taken after carefully evaluating the entire value proposition they propose for the common man," Sinha said in a reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

The India Post Payments Bank had launched its two branches in Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Ranchi (Jharkhand) on January 30 with basic products and banking services in partnership with the Punjab National Bank.

Some of the banks and non-banking companies that have shown interest to partner with India Post Payments Bank are YES Bank, Union Bank, State Bank of India, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, HSBC and Royal Sundaram.

The payments banks are different from regular banks and are not allowed to undertake lending activities directly. 

They can accept demand deposits only that is savings and current accounts and will initially be restricted to holding a maximum balance of Rs 100,000 per individual customer.

Following the Reserve Bank of India guidelines for licensing of payments banks, it cannot accept Non Resident Indian deposits. Payment banks cannot set up subsidiaries to undertake non-banking financial services.