SingPost: Transforming beyond a traditional postal service provider

Loh Choo Beng, executive vice president, Retail & Financial Services, gives us a taste of what to expect in his in-depth feature on SingPost’s retail strategy – featured exclusively in March 2010’s Mail & Express Review. In a dynamic and competitive environment, adapting to changes is no longer enough. Singapore Post Limited (SingPost) has been in a relentless pursuit to transform itself since its listing in 2003, way before the end of its monopoly on basic mail services in April 2007.

Foray into financial services

Since 2003, SingPost has been focusing on strengthening its capabilities and enhancing its three core businesses of Mail, Logistics and Retail.

One of SingPost’s strategies is to leverage its strong retail network for diversification. In 2004, SingPost leveraged its long established tradition of trust and reliability to roll out its very first financial service, SpeedCash. The collateralised lending provides quick liquidity for the mass segment to meet their short-term cash flow needs.

Meeting unmet needs

In the subsequent year, SingPost entered into a partnership with GE Money to provide unsecured personal finance, ezyCash, reaching out to the under-served segment and providing a formal channel for its customers to enter the formal credit system and build their credit histories.

In 2006, GE Money and SingPost rolled out a new personal loan service, James, targeting a higher income group.

Taking consumer banking products further

As part of its strategy to offer high value products to its customers, SingPost collaborated with another bank in 2008 to distribute unsecured personal line of credit, PostLine.

In 2009, SingPost forged a strategic alliance with UOB to distribute HDB home loans at selected post offices, offering customers yet another channel to have their home financing needs met.

Venturing into insurance and investment products

The offering of life insurance policies at post offices in 2005 marked SingPost’s foray into the distribution of insurance products, giving customers direct access to the financial consultants from Prudential Assurance. Subsequently, under its Care for Life brand, SingPost also offers unit trusts in partnership with Prudential Asset Management Singapore Ltd.

In addition, together with GE Money, a myriad of insurance products has been added including travel insurance and home protection plans.

Providing global remittance services

With globalisation, the world is becoming more borderless and people are increasingly working and living outside their home countries. In Singapore, foreign workers and permanent residents make up 1.2m of the 4.9m total population, resulting in the exponential growth of the remittance service.

Recognising the tremendous potential for remittance business, SingPost has been growing its remittance services under its CASHOME brand to offer its customers a secure, affordable and reliable way of transferring funds to over 200 countries worldwide. The use of CASHOME eliminates the need for customers to fill up forms at every transaction, thereby improving the process and providing a hassle-free experience for the customers.

Philippines, Indonesia, China and India are several of the major remittance destinations for SingPost. In addition to collaborating with Western Union to provide remittance services to its customers, SingPost also partnered with the Philippines National Bank (PNB) and the Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) to allow its customers to send monies straight into the recipients’ bank account maintained with PNB or BNI. Its tie-up with another partner, Banco De Ore (BDO), also allows its customers to transfer funds to the Philippines, giving their recipients the flexibility of withdrawing the money from BDO ATMs, MegaLink BancNet or Express Net or PLUS ATMs worldwide.

In 2008, SingPost became the first postal service provider in the world to offer Visa Money Transfer. This enables the senders to directly credit funds into the recipient’s Visa card account. As of January 2010, monies can be remitted via VISA Money Transfer to Visa cardholders in 21 countries including Australia, India, Malaysia, Thailand and United Kingdom.

The availability of the 24/7 round-the-clock remittance service via SingPost’s Self-service Automated Machines (SAMs) for Visa Money Transfer, BNI and BDO remittance services further enhances the CASHOME remittance offerings to the customers.

The full version of Beng’s “SingPost: Transforming beyond a traditional postal service provider” will be published in March 2010’s Mail & Express Review.  To subscribe to the industry’s leading quarterly publication, please click here.