Postbank starts trading this week
The Irish Independent reports that consumers who want to use the post office as a one-stop shop for banking will have to wait 12 months before Postbank will provide a full suite of services.
Postbank, the financial services joint venture between An Post and international financial services group Fortis, will start trading this week and will provide savings and investment products initially.
According to chief executive Margaret Sweeney, the full range of banking services, including loans and mortgages, will be available in a year.
“We will provide a simple approach to banking – I think that’s what consumers want,” she said.
She added that research has shown that what consumers want is “less confused” banking.
Competitive
Ms Sweeney conceded that it will be an uphill battle in the already competitive banking market.
Competition in the market has heated up in the past year, with new entrants and online banking services vying for consumer accounts.
However, she added that with over 75pc of adults visiting a post office once a month, Postbank plans to attract a significant proportion of these customers to its banking services.
Ms Sweeney said that products will be very competitive and will offer attractive saving and investment returns, although she would not give any examples.
Postbank will start trading from over 250 post offices tomorrow and full services will be extended to 1,200 post offices in the coming year.
An Post spent a hefty euro 13.9m finding its euro 112m joint venture financial services partner last year and wrote off the expense as an exceptional cost in its 2006 accounts, rather than capitalising the cost in the Fortis joint venture which is called Postbank.
The euro 13,883,000 expense was incurred by An Post “in relation to the process of identifying and selecting a joint venture partner, subsequent negotiations and signing of the (JV) agreement”, according to the recently released An Post annual report.
Postbank expects to have a workforce of 500 people within three years. “This launch brings a new dimension to banking services in Ireland,” Ms Sweeney said.
