Mumbai, Jan. 9 (PTI): As many as 40 domestic and multinational financial giants have sought to partner India Post for its upcoming payments bank, communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said today.

"You have only got in-principle approval, and other aspects such as appointing a consultant are on, but already 40 big financial services groups from the country and abroad have evinced interest in a tie-up with the postal department," Prasad said while addressing postal employees here.

He named American banking giant Citigroup, British lender Barclays and India's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank among those who have sent tie-up proposals.

Prasad said the department was aiming to get the bank operational by March 2017.

He said some of the requests were to sell insurance, while some seek to provide government-to-citizen and company-to-citizen services.

The postal department features in a list of 11 entities who were given the go-ahead by the RBI last August to set up payments banks, aimed at promoting financial inclusion through deepening the formal financial system by focusing on transactional banking.

India Post is the only state-run entity to feature in the list, which is populated by industrial houses such as the Birlas, Ambanis, and Mahindras, apart from telecom biggies such as Airtel and Vodafone.

The department's reach, spanning 1.54 lakh touch points across the country, is its strength and the employees should leverage it for maximising revenue, he said.

Prasad said the department's revenue has jumped 120 per cent till December 2015. It grew 37 per cent in 2014-15 against a dip of 2 per cent in 2013-14. He, however, did not give the absolute figures.