Customers flock to Lithuania’s post offices to switch to Euro

Lithuanian post offices have seen some brisk trade in the first few days of the New Year, as the Baltic Republic officially adopts the Euro as its currency. Lithuania Post is been offering its network of 330 post offices to provide free conversion for customers switching their old Litas for Euros until 1st March.

So far since 2nd January, the national postal service has collected more than LTL 120m, or about EUR 34.75m.

And, the pace has picked up this week with the morning of 5th January seeing the collection of LTL 45m (EUR 13m).

Inga Dundulienė, the Lithuania Post mail network service director said the volume of customers in post offices had grown as expected in the first days of the currency changeover.

But, she said: “Experience from neighbouring countries suggests that flows of customers in post offices should stabilize in the first three weeks. We are asking for public understanding about the queues forming at post offices in the urgent rush to exchange the currency.”

PayPost

Lithuania Post said with the high demand for currency exchange in post offices, there is the possibility that by the end of the working day some post offices could run out of money. But, fresh deliveries of euros are being made daily.

The amount of euros being delivered to post offices takes account of both customer volume and the needs of security.

Lithuania Post said it is advising customers using regular mail services to take advantage of its PayPost network of on-street kiosks. The company has around 185 of the units, which were introduced from the end of 2012.

Lithuania, which joined the European Union in 2004, became the 19th of the EU’s 28 member states to adopt the Euro currency on 1st January 2015.