Post office seeking to increase its market share in the financial services sector
A collaborative venture with a United States-based cash transfer entity and a new local money transfer service are just two of the initiatives that the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) has taken in recent years in an effort to "re-invent" itself, broaden the base of its revenue and enhance its competitiveness in the financial services sector.
Deputy Post Master General Mayglen Adams is acutely aware of the antiquated image of the local postal service and makes no secret of her support for the changes that are taking place.
Two months ago the Corporation joined two local commercial banks in introducing an "outbound" money transfer service. The service, which is being run in collaboration with Post Cash, a United States-based service allows users to deposit up to USD 2,500 on their Post Cash cards and to have those amounts available to them for business transactions overseas. The facility is valid for both direct cash purchases abroad as well as on-line shopping.
"The advantage of the new "outbound" Post Cash Service compared with similar services currently being offered is that card holders are not required to spend all their cash at the same time. Balances can be held on the card," Ms. Adams told Stabroek Business.
The new outbound Post Cash Service comes just over a year after the GPOC introduced its inbound money transfer service but several months after the introduction of similar services by Republic Bank and the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry. And according to the Deputy Post Master General the fact that both services were not introduced simultaneously may have allowed the Corporation's "competitors" to get ahead of the GPOC in implementing outbound services. She feels that both services ought to have been implemented simultaneously.
Less than two weeks ago the GPOC moved to upgrade its local money transfer service by implementing a "same day" facility that allows for the transfer of amounts up to USD 500,000 to payees in various parts of Guyana. Adams told Stabroek Business that apart from the "same day" facility which the service offers, payees can now uplift those amounts at any named bank or Post Office across the country. The old postal service Money Order which had to be mailed to the payee and could only be cashed at Post Offices has been phased out in most of the post offices around the country.
Long a symbol of service to the public, associated mostly with the sale of postage stamps the postal service has been forced to "change gears" ever since it assumed the status of an autonomous corporation and lost its state subvention in the process.
While the GPOC is currently seeking to infuse more information technology into its operations the advent of that technology has revolutionized communication, minimized the practice of letter writing and considerably reduced its postage stamp revenue. Adams says that these days the sale of postage stamps is sustained mostly by business mail.
Mindful of the criticisms that its mail administration service has attracted over the years the Corporation moved recently to join the Caribbean Telecommunications Union and the International Telecommunications Union. Recently the Corporation installed a system that tracks registered mail and parcels from their points of origin through to the point of delivery. Adams explained that the new tracking system now enables the postal service both to determine the movement of mail as well as to monitor security breaches and mail tampering.
In recent years the GPOC has even managed to transform the appearance of its huge antiquated stone headquarters in central Georgetown through extensive renovations and rentals. The painted and lit trading signs of its tenants and the hustle and bustle of shopping has lent a new aura of liveliness to what used to be one of the drabbest buildings in the city.
But change has not come without challenge. In recent months the GPOC has fallen victim to a series of robberies which, Adams says, has resulted from the fact that there is now a general awareness of the increased level of cash-based services being offered by the postal service.
The GPOC also remains vulnerable to drug traffickers who use the postal service to send drugs abroad.
Adams concedes that the transformation of the postal service has brought new security challenges and says that the GPOC has been working closely with the Customs and Trade Administration and with private security consultants in an effort to create an enhanced security system.
