ISSN: 2455-2631 © October 2020 IJSDR | Volume 5 Issue 10 IJSDR2010029 International Journal of Scientific Development and Research (IJSDR) www.ijsdr.org 213 SWOT Analysis on Indian Postal Schemes - Study on the Post Office Savings Bank of Kerala Circle Dr. Suma Mathew Associate Professor St. Joseph’s Business School St. Joseph’s College of Engineering and Technology, Palai Choondacherry P.O. Kottayam (District) Kerala State Abstract: Strong and robust financial institutions are the standards of economic growth, development and success of modern economies. A financial system, which is inherently strong, functionally varied and displays efficiency and flexibility, is critical to our national objectives of creating a market-driven, dynamic and competitive economy. A mature system supports higher levels of investment and promotes reasonable growth in the economy with its depth and coverage. Keywords: Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat 1. INTRODUCTION The Department of Posts, which functions as an organ of the Government of India, apart from the banking systems, also has a great potential to cater to the rural population and contribute towards further inclusion. India Post is a reliable establishment having proper reach nationwide with wide line up of financial instruments. India Post has about 1,56,600 post offices (as on 31.03.2019) of which 1,41,001 (90.04%) are in rural areas. There is one post office for every 8,511 people in India. India Post also has 2,39,637 agents in the rural area. About 2.2 crore people, already receive their National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) payments by post offices. After State Bank of India(SBI), India Post has the largest deposits valued at ₹6 lakh crore. Pradhan Mantri Jan- DhanYojana (PMJDY) is National Mission for Financial Inclusion to establish access to financial services, namely Banking Savings & Deposit Accounts, Remittance, Credit, Insurance, Pension in an affordable manner. Run by Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, on the launch of the scheme , 1.5 Crore (15 million) bank accounts were opened. Guinness World Records Recognizes the Achievements made under PMJDY, Guinness World Records Certificate says "The most bank accounts opened in 1 week as a part of financial inclusion campaign is 18,096,130 and was achieved by Banks in Indian continent from 23 to 29 August 2014". By 13 th January 2016, over 20 crore (200 million) bank accounts were opened and ₹301.08 billion (US$4.4 billion) were deposited under the scheme The present study is an attempt to analyze the spatial and temporal distribution of financial inclusion and contemplate steps for further improvements of improving access of finance. The results indicate low preference for postal services among the more prosperous states. 2. METHODOLOGY The Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) is one of the Financial Services provided by the Department of Posts. It is one of the oldest and largest banking institution in the country. It operates more than 35.67 crore savings accounts. The Post Office Savings Bank Scheme is an agency function performed by the Department of Posts on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Savings Bank facilities are provided through a network of more than 1,56,000 post offices. There are a number of schemes provided by the Post Office Savings Bank and these include: Savings Accounts, Recurring Deposits (RD), Time Deposit(TD) Monthly Income Scheme (MIS), Public Provident Fund (PPF), National Savings Certificate (NSC), Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP), Senior Citizens Savings Scheme (SCSC) and Sukanya Samriddhi Accounts. This study explores the ways the POSB contributed to the Financial inclusion or inclusive financing in the delivery of financial services at a reasonable prices to sections of disadvantaged and low-income groups of society, in contrast to financial exclusion where those provisions are not available or affordable. It is estimated that about 2 billion working-age adults globally have no access to the types of formal financial services provided by regulated financial institutions. This study is meant to know about the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat Factors Indian Postal Schemes. The method used in the study is exploratory as it utilizes scoring of the variables. The collected data contains both the qualitative and quantitative data. Accordingly, the study uses both qualitative and quantitative techniques for the analysis of data. The statistical analysis comprised of two stages. The first stage examines the descriptive statistics of the measurement items and assessed the reliability and validity of the measure applied in this study. The second stage tested the SWOT and this involves assessing the contributions and significance of the manifest variable’s path coefficients (Grimm, 2000). Confirmatory factor analysis was used to explore the relationships between independent and moderating variables and to describe the construct of the theoretical frame work. This was done using the software AMOS 18 (Arbuckle, 2006 a). In the confirmatory factor analysis, first a theoretically supported model was developed for each factor, a path diagram of casual