Tag: Europe

Post Office launches new Fiveyear Saver

Posted by | Apr 28, 2008 | |

The Post Office announced the sixth issue of its Fiveyear Saver – a no risk, fixed-term deposit bond – which guarantees returns over a five year period with the benefit of further growth potential linked to the FTSE 100-Index.

The Fiveyear Saver offers a dual investment system, which is ideal for investors made cautious by the recent stock market jitters. As a result customers who take advantage of this great offer – which is open from 28th April 2008 and closes on 28th June 2008 – will see their money managed in two ways:

– Half of their deposit earns a very competitive 5.5 per cent gross/AER per annum for the five year fixed term period
– The other half benefits from a 50 per cent return on any increase in the FTSE-100 Index over the five year period. Customers’ original deposits are guaranteed should the FTSE-100 Index fall.

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CWU – Fight Back Over Royal Mail Pension

Posted by | Apr 27, 2008 | |

Following a meeting with senior field officials, the Communication Workers Union is to begin a campaign on the 5th May to highlight what it sees as government and Royal Mail policy failures and the effect that these policies have had on postal worker pensions.

The pension fund currenly has a deficit of around GBP 3.4bn, and Royal Mail plans to clear the deficit by paying into the fund over a period of up to 17 years as well as paying in an extra GBP 270 million this year, an amount it says, that will increase with inflation each year.

The normal retirement age is to be extended from age 60 to 65 with effect from 1 April 2010, pension calculations have now shifted from a Final Salary to a Career Salary Defined Benefit arrangement as of 1st April 2008, meaning that only pension earned in respect of service from 1 April 2008 would be affected by the change. Pension earned prior to this date will still be linked to final pensionable pay on the date the employee leaves or retires. The existing Pension Plan was closed to new members on 31 March 2008.

Two union ballots, one of Royal Mail managers conducted by the union ‘Unite’ and a subsequent ballot of workers, held by the CWU in March, showed an overwhelming rejection of the changes to pensions.

Although both the CWU and CMA/Unite had agreed that changes were needed, the CWU maintains that Royal Mail brought in the revised pension without final discussion with the union and employees and that Royal Mail had not fully explored a options put forward by the union. It now plans to put pressure on government to reverse changes to pensions by writing to and speaking with MPs and political bodies.

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Azerbaijan’s Cooperation with Universal Postal Union is Excellent: Interview with UPU Head

Posted by | Apr 26, 2008 | |

Trend Capital’s exclusive interview with Edouard Dayan, the Director General of the UPU International Bureau.
Question: What is your assessment of Azerbaijan’s activity as a UPU member?
Answer: Azerbaijan is a fairly recent member of the UPU – it only joined the Union on 1 April 1993. Despite this, it is one of the most active countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. It is a member of the UPU Council of Administration elected by the Bucharest Congress, and plays an active part in its work. It also belongs to the EMS Cooperative and to the UPU Telematics Cooperative. At regional level, Azerbaijan is a member of several postal organizations: the Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communication (RCC), which comprises 12 CIS countries, the European Committee for Postal Regulation (CERP) and the Postal Union of EurAsia. In spring 2005, I was able to attend the meeting in Baku of Ministers of Posts and Telecommunications of RCC member countries, where I took the opportunity to meet with representatives of your country’s postal sector.
Question: How do you see the prospects for the development of cooperation between the UPU and Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies?
Answer: As I mentioned earlier, cooperation between the UPU and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies has been excellent since my meeting in May 2005 with your Minister, Professor Ali Abbassov. I should also like to emphasize the particularly important role played in negotiating, and, more recently, implementing the World Bank project for the development of financial services. The main aim of the Azerbaijan Financial Services Development Project is to implement two government strategies: poverty reduction, and the creation of a national payment system based on the postal network. The project aims to offer the country’s population a full range of postal and non-postal financial services by making use of the biggest national physical network – the post office network. Apart from the financial services, there will be improvements in the areas of access to the basic business infrastructure and the delivery of government services.
The UPU, which considers the development of the worldwide financial services network to be one of its main priorities, is willing to provide the Ministry with the advice and assistance needed to make this project a success.
Question: Which projects and joint programmes will your organization and Azerbaijan be able to carry out in the near future? What assistance can the UPU give Azerbaijan, in case of need?
Answer: In November 2006, Azerbaijan benefited from a visit by the UPU to promote an integrated postal reform and development plan (IPDP) mission. The IPDP is a reform and development plan prepared by the UPU in close cooperation with experts from the beneficiary country. It is based on a study of the economic and commercial environment of the postal services, the legal and regulatory framework, and the market of the beneficiary country. The IPDP also takes into account Universal Postal Convention obligations, particularly the universal postal service. In the IPDP, the government also identifies and sets itself long-term objectives, undertaking to achieve them as part of a postal sector reform programme. This strategic document was sent in January 2007 to Mr. Artur Tahir Rasizada, Prime Minister, to Mr. Abbassov, Minister of Communications and Information Technologies, to the Director General of Azerpost, and to the UNDP and the World Bank country offices in Baku. According to my information, the government has decided to allocate about 350,000 USD to the project identified in the IPDP, which is aimed at universal postal service improvement and development, namely through the improvement of the countrywide postal network (creation of new post offices).
For the coming years, it is therefore very important to ensure that the priority projects identified in the IPDP are

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TNT says Dutch labour deal not enough to open market

Posted by | Apr 25, 2008 | |

A deal struck by trade unions and rivals of Dutch mail company to include their workers in a national collective wage agreement is not enough to ensure a level playing field and justify opening the domestic market, TNT said on Friday.

The Dutch government has made its planned liberalisation of the Dutch mail market dependant on negotiations between delivery companies and Dutch postal workers which aim to include all workers in a collective wage deal.

The mail market’s liberalisation had originally been scheduled for January.

TNT, Europe’s second-biggest mail company, whose workers are covered by the collective wage agreement, has seen rivals privately-owned Sandd and Deutsche Post’s

Dutch unit Selekt Mail eat into its market share and profitability in the lucrative domestic market.

Sandd and Selekt Mail signed an agreement in principle with some labour unions regarding labour conditions on Thursday, TNT said.

“This agreement by no means fulfils the conditions for opening the market. It is far too vague and there are no guarantees built into it,” its spokesman Pieter Schaffels said.

TNT’s subsidiary Netwerk VSP, which employs 24,000 part-time workers, will not sign the agreement, he said.

“We want to see first if this is what politicians want,” said Schaffels. He said main trade union ABVAKABO FNV has also not signed the deal as it shares the same concern.

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Russian Red Hat Test Could Reach 57k

Posted by | Apr 25, 2008 | |

The Russian postal service has started testing a new IT system aimed at linking all of Russia’s post offices. The new system is based on Linux Red Hat.

Russian Post says if the present tests prove to be a success, it will continue to build on Linux Red Hat and develop a comprehensive network system throughout Russia.

Linux, which continues to challenge Microsoft, is proving popular with many large businesses. The present testing phase is expected to last from 2-3 months. Russian Post says it hopes to install the new software in 57 thousand operation counters and 70 thousand working places in over 42 thousand post offices.

Russian Post and American company Red Hat signed the Protocol of intentions on IT development based on open freeware in March 2008. The parties agreed to join efforts to implement operating system Linux and other software products with open code in Russian Post’s IT-structure.

The savings through transfering to Linux will save Russian Post considerable money in licence fees and still allow it to further develop its own systems. The preset IT system is being adapted by developers in Russia to run on Linux.

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