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Emirates Post presents Innovation Award to Post Denmark at World Mail Awards 2008

Posted by | Jun 1, 2008 | |

Emirates Post presented the Innovation award to Denmark Post at the prestigious World Mail Awards 2008 which were announced at a gala dinner in Budapest, Hungary, in the presence of over 300 senior postal industry executives.

Mr. Ibrahim Bin Karam, CEO of Emirates Post, presented the award to Post Denmark for its ‘No More’ solution that allows packing and distribution of unaddressed mail based on individual mail recipient, rather than mass distribution based on bulk recipients.

‘Emirates Post has been sponsoring the Innovation category at the World Mail Awards as it believes innovation is a key driver of any business,’ said Bin Karam. ‘It was indeed a privilege for Emirates Post to stand among major global postal operators and sponsor one of the most coveted categories of the World Mail Awards, the mail industry’s premier global honours.’

In its 9th year, the Awards continue to grow in both prestige and breadth of coverage. This is the third year Emirates Post has sponsored the Innovation category.

The twelve winners competed against a broad geographical diversity of applicants and a wide variety of products and services submitted by operators and suppliers of the mail industry.

The Awards were part of the World Mail and Express Europe Conference which took place on 20th and 21st May, offering delegates a prime opportunity to network and celebrate best practices in the industry.

With over 100 entries received this year, judges had a tough job on their hands.

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Belgium open to postal ties to Scandinavian group

Posted by | May 31, 2008 | |

Belgium is open to the idea of its postal service becoming part of the new joint Danish-Swedish mail group, a minister told Belgian business daily De Tijd in a story published on Saturday.

Sweden and Denmark agreed in April to merge the two countries’ post offices, creating a company with annual revenues of about USD 7.5 billion that will eventually be listed.

Sweden will own 58.23 percent of the capital. The letter of intent was also signed by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners which owns a minority stake in Post Danmark, the Danish post office.

The move has led to speculation about what might happen to Belgium’s postal service, in which the Belgian state has 50 percent and one share. Post Danmark and CVC have the remaining stake of just under 50 percent.

Vervotte was open to the idea of Belgium’s La Poste/De Post, and its 37,000 workers, becoming part of the new Scandinavian group.

Belgium has similarly said it wishes to retain control over former telecom monopoly Belgacom , but might be ready to lower its stake if Belgacom found a merger partner.

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Royal Mail under more pressure (UK)

Posted by | May 31, 2008 | |

Even though the Royal Mail has been under extreme pressure for a number of years it seems that the expected end to post office closures may be delayed. A report from an influential committee of MPs will this week confirm that the management of Royal Mail were not able to give a guarantee that the number of post offices in the network would stay above 11,500.
The company recent announced the planned closure of a further 2,500 post offices taking the limit down to the government declared minimum of 11,500. The committee of MPs are seriously thinking of reporting the company to the regulator Postcomm to try to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
However, while the number of active post offices is set to fall significantly over the next couple of years, there are some in the business who blame the government and the competition authorities. They were the people that opened up the UK postal market at a time when Royal Mail was not in shape to compete.
There have also been major problems with the company’s pension scheme and a number of strikes over the last few years which have further deteriorated any confidence left in the operation. Quite where the closures will stop is unsure, but Royal Mail is not yet a competitive operation.

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Postwatch: 2007/08: Customer expectations were not met

Posted by | May 30, 2008 | |

Royal Mail released its performance figures for 2007/08. As expected these show a substantial decline against the previous year’s record breaking performance and that the company failed to achieve 9 of the 12 minimum service targets in its licence. Royal Mail’s performance was severely affected by official and unofficial industrial action.
Millie Banerjee, Chair of Postwatch, commenting on Royal Mail’s performance said: “Royal Mail’s recovery was severely blown off course by last summer’s strikes. Figures released today confirm that customers received poor levels of service. Furthermore, the fourth quarter results show that Royal Mail’s recovery from the industrial action was in some respects disappointingly slow.

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Indian Post and Deutsche Postbank in talks

Posted by | May 30, 2008 | |

The Department of Post (DoP) said it is in talks with Deutsche Postbank to enter into housing loan business.
The Post office already have alliance with the SBI to enable people to open an account through the postal department. Moreover, education, home and personal loans can also be applied for and sanctioned from State Bank of India through the postal department.
With a huge network of more than 155,000 post offices, the DoP is also looking at tie-ups with other banks to disburse housing loans in the rural areas.
The post office, in its bid to leverage its reach had started retailing various financial products.
It has a tie-up with UTI MF, Principal PNB AMC, Prudential ICICI and SBI Mutual Fund for selling their mutual funds.
Recently, the post office has also inked a joint venture with the Centurian Bank of Punjab for business in foreign exchange.
Under the six month agreement with the Centurian Bank of Punjab for forex business, a pilot project would be launched in 31 Head Post Offices of 11 states.
Besides, the government is also using the post offices to disburse the proceedings of the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) Scheme.

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Japan Post group sees higher than expected profits in 1st 6 months+

Posted by | May 30, 2008 | |

Japan Post Holdings Co. said last Friday 30 May, its business performance in the first six months of its 10-year privatization process exceeded its expectations with a consolidated net profit of 277.2 billion yen during the October-March period.

The figure was 29 percent higher than an initial projection due in part to robust earnings results delivered by Japan Post Bank.

The postal bank recorded a net profit of 152.1 billion yen, up 17 percent from an initial estimate, thanks to good returns on investments mainly in government bonds.

Japan Post Network Co., however, logged a net profit of only 4.6 billion yen, 86 percent lower than expected, because of stagnant commissions revenue from its group firms, indicating that the company, which administers around 24,000 post offices across the country, represents a particularly weak spot for the four-company Japan Post group.

Japan Post Insurance Co.’s net profit of 7.6 billion yen was a tad lower than the earlier projection of 8 billion yen.

In addition to the three group firms above, Japan Post Holdings presides over Japan Post Service Co., its mail service arm.

1 JPY = 0.00949762 USD

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New technologies key to postal uplift – Posts Minister (Sri Lanka)

Posted by | May 30, 2008 | |

The Postal Department could be converted into a lucrative venture only through the introduction of new services and technologies in addition to its normal services, Posts and Telecommunication Minister Mahinda Wijesekara said yesterday.

He said with the implementation of the proposed plans, the income of the Postal Department could be increased to Rs. 1,000 million by 2010. Addressing the media at the new Posts and Telecommunication Ministry premises at D.R. Wijewardene Mawatha, Minister Wijesekara said the Ministry has drawn several plans to develop the Postal Department that will not burden the Treasury.

Wijesekara said according to recent statistics the Postal Department is one of the three departments managed at a loss. He said all problems related to the development of the Postal Department would be solved soon.

The Minister said by merely depending on ancient methods the Postal Department could not be converted into a lucrative venture as it is a service oriented business. Wijesekara said the Government is the main telecommunication provider and it will never give up the ownership of the Postal Department at any time.

The Posts and Telecommunication Ministry will sign an agreement with Western Union Money Transfer Company to promote the Department’s income standards. With the implementation of the agreement, foreign exchange transactions can be carried out through post offices in the country. This will become an additional income earning source to the Postal Department in addition to its normal business, the Minister said. The Postal Department has also focussed its attention on providing mobile phone re-loading facilities, he said.

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Labour provides some balance at the Rutgers conference on postal economics

Posted by | May 30, 2008 | |

At a special session for Labour at the recent Rutgers sponsored conference taking place in Portugal on Postal and Delivery Economics, three union presenters tried to add some balance to the proceedings by giving the view of labour on liberalisation and deregulation in the postal industry.
Billy Hayes from the CWU, UK, presented a paper that showed what has happened to the UK mail market and in particular to the problems Royal Mail now have in remaining a viable provider of the Universal Postal Service since the UK postal market had been liberalised. Billy told the conference that in the current review of Royal Mail it had been shown that liberalisation had been of no benefit to small and medium sized business and ordinary consumers, it had only been to the advantage of large companies.
Geoff Bickerton of the Canadian union, CUPW, told the conference that the majority of stakeholders in Canada and the United Sates did not favour a deregulation of the postal service which was being promoted by big business and the potential competitors. He said that the response to his research had been that stakeholders were saying, “if it isn’t broken don’t try and fix it!” Jim Sauber and John Baldwin in their paper argued that the failure to resolve the issue of historical pension liabilities was putting an unjustified burden onto the operating costs of the postal operators. They said that previous failures to properly fund pension pans now meant that postal operators now had huge liabilities that threatened the reform of the postal market and the ongoing viability of the universal service.

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