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Deutsche Postbank set for sale (GER)
Deutsche Post is ready to sell Postbank and is expected to begin a formal sales process for the euro 10bn (USD 15.7bn) business within days, insiders say.
The move will herald a summer of dealmaking in Germany’s banking sector after Citigroup received a number of non-binding offers last week for its German retail business at the first stage.
International and domestic banks have expressed interest in both Postbank and the Citigroup operation, which are among the largest retail businesses in the fragmented banking sector.
A person with knowledge of Deutsche Post said “final discussions” were imminent about the future of Postbank
Deutsche Post has already had informal approaches since its former chief executive hinted that Postbank could be sold. Frank Appel, Deutsche Post’s new chief executive, has confirmed that Postbank should play an active role in banking consolidation and admitted his shareholders would reject further involvement in banking.
The postal and logistics group owns 50 per cent plus one share of Postbank, the former post office savings bank that is separately listed since an initial public offering in 2004.
Most analysts expect Postbank will be bought by a German lender, with Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, the two largest domestic banks, among those to have shown interest.
Allianz, the insurer, has also considered a bid for Postbank. One option jointly discussed by Commerzbank and Allianz is for a three way tie-up involving Commerzbank, Postbank and Dresdner Bank, Allianz’s banking subsidiary. However, bankers believe such a deal would be complex.
Read MoreUSPS show benefits of digital signage
The US Postal Services has released results that show the effectiveness of digital signage in redirecting customers to in-store self-service options. With over 32,000 busy retail locations, encouraging customers to change their behaviour and help themselves to information and services is a central part of the USPS’s strategy.
In a recent test the Post Office installed 30-inch “Stop and Turn” screens in the main entrances, showing short, direct and simple 3-5 second messages such as “Get out line. Buy stamps at vending” or “Jump the line, Ship pacages at the APC”.
The USPS has 2,500 APC’s (Automated Postal Center), interactive kiosks that sell stamps and provide a mail service point for packages. The “Stop and Turn” digital signage screen had the effect of making customers more likely to use both the stamp vending (8.7% against 6.5%) and the APC service (7.4% against 3.4%).
The digital screens were also used to promote the availability of postal services in the 70,000 other non-post office locations (such as supermarkets). Again the digital signage tests showed a 22% jump in awareness – and to prove the point, revenues from stamp sales declined in the test sites, only to rise in the local alternative locations.
AKA COMMENT
It is easy to see why the Post Office is innovating in self-service. A reduction in human interaction of 2.2% and 4% across 32,000 locations would result in a vast saving of staff time. This not only opens up the opportunity to cut costs in-store, but as the banks have found, it frees-up valuable employee time for selling higher margin and more complex products.
Customers are proving themselves ever more comfortable with the concept of self-service, what started with the ATM has spread through the internet to cover a whole range of different product categories. The difficulty has always been persuading customers to use the silent ‘box in the corner’.
From this research it would seem that combining the kiosk with dynamic digital signage may hold the key.
Read MoreDigital signage used by USPS to spark interest in kiosks
Sometimes, when I speak at conferences, I joke about some of the long-standing traditions we have at the Postal Service: “More than 230 years of tradition unmarred by progress.”
Beyond that self-deprecating attempt at humor, I’m proud to say that there has been significant progress over the years – from simple innovations like self-adhesive stamps and flat-rate priority mail boxes to more complex ones like automated mail sorting and printing postage online.
The Postal Service also has made progress with the testing and deployment of large, complex communication networks. In 1996, we introduced Postal Vision, an employee communications network that now is integrated with our USPS-TV network. As an “early adopter” of digital signage, we began testing the impact of digital vs. static menu boards in retail lobbies in 1999. And in 2003, we laid the groundwork for a test of digital signage that began in selected post offices in 2004 – The Post Office Channel. This third effort took advantage of the advances that had taken place in a growing medium including content delivery methods and the declining costs of technology.
One of our challenges is to improve the customer experience in more than 32,000 retail locations. Digital signage can have a positive impact on the retail environment in several ways. One opportunity is to increase the range of information available to customers while they are waiting to be served. The Post Office Channel features product and service messages to educate and inform retail customers. For example, one message compares the product features of overnight express mail and two-to-three-day priority mail. Another compares delivery confirmation to signature confirmation and shows which form to use depending on which service the customer chooses.
Read MoreItaly's PosteMobile selects Gemalto solution integrating post office services into the mobile phone
Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, today announces it has provided PosteMobile, the first Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) in Italy, with a software solution that allows BancoPosta customers to securely carry out payment transactions with their mobile phone. Both PosteMobile and BancoPosta are part of the Poste Italiane Group. They take advantage of their unique position in the convergent mobile and banking worlds. Gemalto’s MVNO portal management solution makes everyday life easier for PosteMobile suscribers, as users simply send a command from their mobile phone to pay their bills, send a telegram or a fax, top up their account and wire money from their BancoPosta account and from PostePay, BancoPosta prepaid credit card.
PosteMobile was launched in November 2007 and immediately started to deploy mobile-banking services to their customers. The project has proven very successful, with over 200,000 BancoPosta customers using these services in just six months, among the over 250,000 PosteMobile customers. PosteMobile is now pursuing its innovation strategy by rolling out m-payment and M-Commerce services.
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