These are, in some ways, similar to local area banks, an experiment that was abandoned, but with a significant difference, namely, that there is no restriction in their area of operations. A more innovative initiative is licenses to payment banks, of which the Department of Posts with its deep penetration is one.
The banks, too, need to make efforts to ready themselves to weather changes in the macroeconomic climate. After all, an economic slowdown might also be accompanied by a renewed rise in credit risk. One of the side-effects of ultra-accommodative monetary policy is that the longer the lowinterest-rate environment persists, the greater the strain on banks becomes.