Profitable An Post sets date for bank products

THE first financial products from An Post’s joint venture with Belgian bank Fortis will be marketed to the public early next year.

Donal Curtin, the chief executive of An Post who is leaving next July, said the electronic funds transfer (EFT) of social-welfare payments, child benefit and unemployment benefit would be among the services offered.

Contact points

He said a full range of financial products could be made available to An Post’s millions of customers through almost 5,000 ‘contact points’. He also stressed that issues like opening hours might not be a problem if ATMs can be made available.

The joint venture with Fortis is engaging a 30-strong team from An Post at a location separate from the GPA headquarters of the State mail company and will require capital investment in the years ahead.

An Post has announced after-tax profits of more than 40.7m for 2005, boosted by the one-off sale of electronic top-up companies in the UK and Spain which netted nearly 60m.

An Post said its second successive year of profits reflected tighter control of costs and improved cash reserves, a radical change from the situation in 2003 when a cash crisis prompted the sale of company property. Since then 1,200 employees have left.

The company’s annual report shows an operating profit of 16.2m, up from almost 2m in 2004.

Operating costs fell for the second successive year by 16.5m to 736.7m. An Post said that payment of the full terms of the Sustaining Progress agreement added 38m to payroll costs.

The rationalisation of SDS is producing savings of 10m a year and the business is now profitable.

An additional investment of 1.5m is to be made in the Portlaoise sorting centre to facilitate parcel distribution. An Post has set aside 40m for restructuring costs arising from a deal agreed with the Communications Workers’ Union late last year, with 1,100 employees opting for severance or early retirement.

Turnover was up slightly to 753m, thanks to price increases as mail volumes declined.Mr Curtin said a decline of up to 1pc a year in mail services was being forecast for the next decade irrespective of population and economic growth. Staff costs make up 70pc of total operating costs.

Jim Aughney