Rent out post office space to commercial entities
Postal services assets, primarily its islandwide network of post offices and sub post offices could be used to generate additional revenue if space in those outlets are rented out to other commercial establishments, a report said.
The report, which has as its prime focus to enhance the revenue of the loss making Sri Lanka Posts (SLP) was handed over to Posts Minister Mahinda Wijesekera at the SLP Hqrs. bldg,, on Wednesday.
SLP is the only organization having islandwide outlets (some 4,703 outlets) providing “easy” access to every household. This facility will be “gladly” embraced by other institutions that do not have such infrastructure facilities. There are many institutes such as telephone companies, internet service providers, electricity companies, Water Supply Board, insurance companies and local government authorities who want to collect revenue from their customers and are looking for operational space, post offices may fill this vacuum, the report said.
SLP, formerly known as the Postal Department, made a Rs. 2.3 billion loss last year. It has accumulated losses totalling Rs. 11.2 billion over a 12 year period beginning from 1996.
Among the recommendations made in this document which was prepared by Deputy Post Master General K.A.S. Senadhira were to take advantage of the fact that many commercial banks were waiting for a tie-up with SLP to receive more agency services, including using the postal network for foreign money remittance. HSBC already uses post offices for credit card payment settlements.
Postal services assets, primarily its islandwide network of post offices and sub post offices could be used to generate additional revenue if space in those outlets are rented out to other commercial establishments, a report said.
The report, which has as its prime focus to enhance the revenue of the loss making Sri Lanka Posts (SLP) was handed over to Posts Minister Mahinda Wijesekera at the SLP Hqrs. bldg,, on Wednesday.
SLP is the only organization having islandwide outlets (some 4,703 outlets) providing “easy” access to every household. This facility will be “gladly” embraced by other institutions that do not have such infrastructure facilities. There are many institutes such as telephone companies, internet service providers, electricity companies, Water Supply Board, insurance companies and local government authorities who want to collect revenue from their customers and are looking for operational space, post offices may fill this vacuum, the report said.
SLP, formerly known as the Postal Department, made a Rs. 2.3 billion loss last year. It has accumulated losses totalling Rs. 11.2 billion over a 12 year period beginning from 1996.
Among the recommendations made in this document which was prepared by Deputy Post Master General K.A.S. Senadhira were to take advantage of the fact that many commercial banks were waiting for a tie-up with SLP to receive more agency services, including using the postal network for foreign money remittance. HSBC already uses post offices for credit card payment settlements.
The Senadhira report further said that postal insurance and postal banking are the new areas to be considered by SLP as new financial services, if permitted by the Finance Act.
It said that the SLP network may assist these types of institutes by permitting them to utilize the post office as an outlet to collect their revenue from their customers and make the post office more useful and customer friendly.
“Identify the institutes that need agency services through post offices, develop the legal framework and obtain approvals and negotiate financial terms and conditions,” the report recommended.
SLP could “easily” handle through their experience and capability: issue of revenue licenses, banking agency services, insurance agency facilities, rural credit facilities, selling of Treasury bills/bonds, air ticketing and water and telephone bill payment acceptance.
It also observed that the business community who represent less than 20% of SLP’s total customer base brings more than 70% of the total volume of mail to SLP.
The Senadhira report also said that recent estimates of the cost of service provision put the cost of delivering a letter around Rs. 12, against the present postage for an ordinary letter (except business letters) of Rs. 5.
SLP has some 19,000 employees, of whom 7,000 are postmen. Its total income last year was Rs. four billion, however its expenditure was Rs. 6.3 billion, causing a Rs, 2.3 billion deficit.
