Fortis signs MoU with Ireland's An Post to create financial services jv
Belgo-Dutch bancassurance group Fortis NV said that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ireland’s An Post, with a view to creating a financial services joint venture.
The joint venture will provide financial services in Ireland through An Post’s network of 1,450 post offices.
The companies said they expect to sign the final agreement by this summer and will not make any further comment on the negotiation process.
No financial details of the transaction were disclosed.
An Post may sign deal on banking by summer
European Intelligence Wire 04-14-2006
AN Post could be offering a wide range of banking products early next year as its proposed joint-venture with Belgium’s Fortis moves ahead.
Back in February, the Government gave An Post permission to enter exclusive talks with Fortis, a major European bancassurer that is more than twice the size of AIB.
The Belgian group already has a banking joint-venture with the Belgian Post Office and yesterday announced it had now signed a Memorandum of Understanding with An Post “that will lead to the creation of a joint venture”.
Arrangement
The parties said they hoped to sign the final agreement by this summer but are not giving any detail of the proposed operations, other than that the idea is to provide “financial services in Ireland through An Post’s 1,450 post offices”.
An Post is currently coming towards the end of its four-year contract with AIB which has enabled the banking group’s customers to conduct certain transactions through the Post Office network. It is hard to see this arrangement – which AIB operates on an agency basis with An Post and not as a joint venture – continuing past this current contract, given the likelihood that the joint-venture deal will be done with Fortis.
AIB was one of the instiitutions that bid to become An Post’s banking partner. One can only assume that Fortis was chosen instead because of its expertise in this area in its home market, not to mention similar-type ventures it has for the provision and sale of insurance products with banks in Spain, Porttugal and the Far East.
Fortis, which is listed in Brussels and Amsterdam, is now concluding a joint venture with an Indian bank as part of its strategy to expand outside of its home Benelux market. It is involved in banking and insurance and has a presence in 44 countries with a workforce of 56,000.
Fortis’ Post Office joint venture in Belgium is focussed chiefly on savings and insurance products.
