Indian post and telegraph department provides various postal services across India. For providing these services the whole country has been divided into 22 postal circles. These circles manage the functioning of the various head post offices, sub-post offices and branch post offices. There are 154149 post offices and 564701 letter boxes processing 1575 crore mails every year. The various facilities provided by postal department are broadly categorized into

(i) Financial Facilities Post Office Savings Bank is the largest retail bank having 150000 plus branches. Financial facilities are provided through the post office’s savings schemes like Public Provident Fund (PPF), Kisan Vikas Patra, and National Saving Certificates apart from retail banking functions of monthly income schemes, recurring deposits, savings account, time deposits and money order facility.
(ii) Mail Facilities Mail services consist of parcel facilities that is transmission of articles from one place to another; registration facility to provide security of the transmitted articles and insurance facility to provide insurance cover for all risks in the course of transmission by post.

The term ‘business risk’ refer to the possibility of inadequate profits or even losses, due to uncertainties or unexpected events. For example, the demand for a particular product may decline due to change in tastes and preferences of consumers. Decrease in demand will result in lesser sale and thereby lesser profits.
Nature of business risk : The nature of business risks can be understood in terms of its peculiar characteristics:

1. Business risks arise due to uncertainties.
2. Risk is an essential part of every business.
3. Degree of risk depends mainly upon the nature and size of business.
4. Profit is the reward for risk taking.

1. Capital is contributed by central or state or both govts.
2. Public welfare or Service is the main objective.
3. Management & control are in the hands of govt.
4. It is accountable to the public.

• Accepts deposit – The bank takes deposits in the form of saving, current, and fixed deposits. The surplus balances collected from the firm and individuals are lent to the temporary required of commercial transactions.
• Provides Loan and Advances – Another critical function of this bank is to offer loans and advances to the entrepreneurs and businesspeople and collect interest. For every bank, it is the primary source of making profits. In this process, a bank retains a small number of deposits as a reserve and offers (lends) the remaining amount to the borrowers in demand loans, overdraft, cash credit, and short-run loans etc.
• Credit Cash- When a customer is provided with credit or loan, they are not provided with liquid cash. First, a bank account is opened for the customer and then the money is transferred to the account. This process allows a bank to create money.

• Discounting bills of exchange – It is a written agreement acknowledging the amount of money to be paid against the goods purchased at a given point of time in future. The amount can also be cleared before the quoted time through a discounting method of a commercial bank.
• Overdraft Facility – It is an advance given to a customer by keeping the current account to overdraw up to the given limit.
• Purchasing and Selling of the Securities – The bank offers you with the facility of selling and buying the securities.
• Locker Facilities – Bank provides lockers facility to the customers to keep their valuable belonging or documents safely. Banks charge a minimum of an annual fee for this service.
• Paying and Gather the Credit – It uses different instruments like a promissory note, cheques, and bill of exchange.

Ploughing back of profits means investing “part of business profits” in the business. We know that generally firms do not distribute the whole of profits as dividend. They keep a part of it to use in business.
 The part of profit is not distributed is called retained profit. Ploughing back of profits is the most convenient and economical method of financing. It makes the company strong and increases capital formation.