Israel Post Office wants to issue debit cards
Israel Postal Authority has applied to the Ministry of Communications for permission to enter a range of new activities, now that the Knesset yesterday passed in its second and third readings an amendment to the Budget Arrangements Law to open the postal market to competition in 2006. Postal Authority chairman Jacob Edery believes that most of the services will be authorized soon.
Sources inform Globes that that the Postal Authority has initiated procedures to obtain permission to issue debit cards to Postal Bank customers. It also plans to sell lottery tickets in competition with kiosks. A pilot program will be launched in October.The Postal Authority also wants to sell household communications devices, such as telephones, faxes and mobile devices, and it has asked for permission to sell bus tickets, and insurance services, such as travel insurance.
The Postal Authority will short apply for permission to provide other services, including selling plane tickets for overseas flights and tickets for cultural events.
The plan to convert the Postal Authority into a government company includes severing the Postal Bank from the Postal Authority. Edery says the plan is to expand the Postal Bank’s activities to become a bank for the resource-poor, by opening branches in outlying areas, where the Postal Bank has an edge over the commercial banks.
The core of the postal reform is the conversion of the Postal Authority into a government company, and the subsequent opening of competition in three stages, in January 2006, 2007 and 2009, by which time competition will reach 70% of the postal market. The postal market may be opened to full competition in 2010.
With the opening of the postal market to competition, the price of domestic mail will rise from NIS 1.30 to NIS 1.50, and the cost of bulk mail will rise 9%.
Figures obtained by "Globes" indicate that the Postal Authority posted NIS 821 million in revenue in the first half of 2004, 6% more than in the first half of 2003. It lost NIS 19 million in the first half, a substantial improvement compared with its NIS 64 million loss in the first half of last year.
However, revenue fell 5.6% in the second quarter to NIS 398.6 million, compared with the first, and expenses rose by NIS 4 million to NIS 422 million. Under the first plan derived from the Postal Authority budget, the Postal Authority will post a NIS 100 million deficit for 2004, but it will apparently report better than planned financial results.
The Postal Authority lost NIS 200 million in 2003.
