The power of post: Delivering digital financial services

Postal banks boast a long history of success – the first being established in Great Britain in 1861 – and they are still the means through which millions of people worldwide have access to financial services. David Avsec
https://itu4u.wordpress.com

Posts have an abundance of experience in providing cash-in, cash-out services, and they can generally be relied upon to have cash-management expertise. Posts’ experience in financial transactions (particularly domestic and international remittances), trusted brand image and proven capabilities in operating large-volume, small-margin commercial services make them particularly well-suited to the offer of digital financial services (DFS).

Posts provide numerous case studies of digital finance’s enabling factors. At the Universal Postal Union (UPU), we have identified five primary business models through which Posts engage in DFS.

Connecting post offices with mobile devices, for example, is exactly what UPU is doing with its International Financial System (IFS), a technical platform for Posts’ domestic and international electronic remittances. IFS makes use of our Electronic Data Interchange messaging standards to send international money-order data electronically, applying sophisticated data-encryption techniques to ensure the integrity of the data sent over the postal network. 70 Posts worldwide are party to the system, which was recently upgraded with mobile extensions to enable remote post offices to transact electronically using tablets or smartphones.

Leveraging their ubiquity, post offices very often play the role of cash-merchant for mobile money services. Mobile Money Operators (MMOs) need a network of contact points for registering customers and cashing money into or out of the system. The postal network provides just this capability, with a prime example in the partnership of Zimbabwe’s Ecocash and Burundi Post with Econet.

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