La Poste, the French post office, has decided to update its image with what it calls a more dynamic and contemporary logo. According to the organisation’s Marketing Director, Vincent Relave, the new logo better reflects La Poste’s position and ambitions in society. It has cost La Poste EUR 70,000, plus EUR 10m for an advertising campaign which begins at the end of the month.
Read MoreFrench banks long feared competition would come from abroad. So they busily constructed (often with state help) defensive mergers among themselves to forestall foreign takeovers. But now, they suddenly find themselves bitten in the ankle from behind by the state itself. For the government has pushed its postal service, La Poste, into setting up a banking subsidiary as a full competitor in the lucrative mortgage market. The country’s four main commercial banks have now cried foul to Brussels about this new Banque Postale using its special advantages to distort competition. All European postal systems are diversifying away from their traditional mail delivery business, which is in decline because of the rise of e-mail and is increasingly open to cross-border competition under European Union rules. Governments are also using electronic bank transfers rather than post offices to deliver welfare benefits. So most post offices are trying to capitalise on their large networks to sell financial services products, to the general displeasure of commercial banks.
Read MoreA group of leading French banks said Thursday that they had appealed a decision by the French regulator approving plans of the state-owned mail service La Poste to open its own bank in January. The move, which is sure to intensify competition in the country’s banking industry, comes as other countries like Japan are seeking to break up the financial power of their post offices. In France, La Poste secured the approval on Wednesday of the Cecei, the country’s banking regulator, to set up its own retail banking operation. La Poste, the second-biggest European mail operator after Deutsche Post, already gets 23 percent of its revenue from financial services, including checking accounts and long-term savings.
Read MoreFrench banking regulator Comite des Establissments de Credit et des Entreprises d’Investissement (CECEI) has given La Poste mail service approval for its own postal bank, to be named La Banque Postale. The decision was questioned by the French Banking Federation, which warned that the market could be at risk once La Poste’s network of 17,000 branches starts to offer banking and financial services. La Poste currently serves savings and checking account clients.
Read MoreThe Paris district court has said that it will not rule until November 29 on a challenge by French postal unions to the company agreement of Efiposte, the investment arm of the French post office (La Poste). The unions are asking for the agreement not to be applied to the transfer of 900 La Poste employees to that organisation’s new postal bank.
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