Tag: Mail Services

China Post Group gets go-ahead to set up life insurance company

Posted by | Jun 8, 2008 | |

China Post Group, the business entity in charge of mail, delivery services and postal saving banks, has been approved by the country’s insurance regulator to set up a life insurance company.

Feng Xinsheng, executive deputy general manager of the group, said here on Saturday the company to-be, named as China Post Life Insurance Company Limited, will be launched within a year.

The insurance company would be registered in Beijing with a register capital of 500 million yuan (72.46 million U.S. dollars),Feng said.

He said the new company would mainly target farmers, low-income urban residents and migrant workers in cities.

Experiences of the group as agents of insurance sales would surely help in building such an insurance company, he added.

China Post Group was established in December 2006 to separate the regulatory functions of the former State Post Bureau (SPB) from its business activities.

SPB was traditionally both the supervisor and a player in the market.

The CPG, after the separation, owns the China Postal Air Freight Corporation and the China Postal Savings Bank and controls EMS services merged with the China Postal Logistics Corporation.

Feng said deposits at the China Postal Savings Bank, inaugurated in March 2007, had reached 1.8 trillion yuan by the end of May. The bank is more recognized as a community bank or rural bank with extensive outlets across the nation, especially in the countryside.

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Rent out post office space to commercial entities

Posted by | Jun 8, 2008 | |

Postal services assets, primarily its islandwide network of post offices and sub post offices could be used to generate additional revenue if space in those outlets are rented out to other commercial establishments, a report said.

The report, which has as its prime focus to enhance the revenue of the loss making Sri Lanka Posts (SLP) was handed over to Posts Minister Mahinda Wijesekera at the SLP Hqrs. bldg,, on Wednesday.

SLP is the only organization having islandwide outlets (some 4,703 outlets) providing “easy” access to every household. This facility will be “gladly” embraced by other institutions that do not have such infrastructure facilities. There are many institutes such as telephone companies, internet service providers, electricity companies, Water Supply Board, insurance companies and local government authorities who want to collect revenue from their customers and are looking for operational space, post offices may fill this vacuum, the report said.

SLP, formerly known as the Postal Department, made a Rs. 2.3 billion loss last year. It has accumulated losses totalling Rs. 11.2 billion over a 12 year period beginning from 1996.

Among the recommendations made in this document which was prepared by Deputy Post Master General K.A.S. Senadhira were to take advantage of the fact that many commercial banks were waiting for a tie-up with SLP to receive more agency services, including using the postal network for foreign money remittance. HSBC already uses post offices for credit card payment settlements.

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Remittances through post offices

Posted by | Jun 8, 2008 | |

The Postal Department is discussing with a remittance service and a private commercial bank to introduce remittance services in postal outlets.

The Department operates some 650 post offices and 3,500 sub-post offices islandwide.

The service providers with whom the Department is having discussions are Western Union (WU) Money Transfer Service and DFCC Vardhana Bank (DVB).

Posts Minister Mahinda Wijesekera speaking at the Postal Department Hqrs., Bldg., on Wednesday said that the necessary space available for such banking operations will be rented out to them.

The Minister said that the Department made a Rs. 2.3 billion loss last year. Its expenditure this year is forecast at Rs. eight billion, and next year, Rs. 10 billion.

“Such steps will help us to mitigate such losses through the rent income received,” said Wijesekera.

The Department has some 19,000 employees.

At present, still the main types of remittance service in the country are the traditional telegraphic transfer systems and bank drafts which are costly, WU Sri Lanka Marketing Manager Imran Carim told The Sunday Leader.

The Postal Department also has a tie-up with HSBC for credit card settlements.

“We will be negotiating with other banks, to get them also into this scheme,” Posts Ministry Secretary W.M. Piyasena told The Sunday Leader.

He said that the Department was talking to Moratuwa University and Dialog Telekom for networking of their branches and utility bills settlements, by the consumer making use of the Department’s islandwide postal network to make those payments which will be transmitted electronically.

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Qtel services to be offered at post offices

Posted by | Jun 8, 2008 | |

Users of Qatar Telecom (Qtel) services will now have an option when it comes to the payment of bills, following the signing of an agreement between the General Postal Corporation (Q-Post) and the telecom service provider.

Qtel services at post offices will be offered in a phased manner, starting with Q-Post offices located in Dafna, Abdul Aziz bin Ahmed Street and Al Kahraba Street.

Other than payment of bills, postpaid and prepaid GSM cards and prepaid charge cards will be available at post offices. At a press conference, Sheikh Fahad bin Jassim Al Thani, Qtel COO, said: “Today’s joint efforts will enable customers to subscribe to most of their telecom services and mail their personal or business parcels at the same time. Also, this will provide customers with more outlets in numerous areas to meet their telecom needs, in addition to Qtel’s 17 branches.”

Waleed Al Sayed, Qtel Executive Director (Customer Services), said: “We are planning to work on a long-term relationship. All the range of our products will be gradually rolled out. As you are also aware, training for Q-Post employees will need to be given. By early 2009, all services will be provided.”

Al Sayed said Qtel employees will not be sent to the post offices but will only provide the training. “We have no intention of doing the work physically there. We have confidence in Q-Post to deliver quality service to customers,” he said.

Six post offices will now be offering the Hala recharge service while six will be added later.

Ali Mohammed Al Ali, Q-Post Chairman, said: “We hope all branches will be covered by the end of this year. Customers can now take care of their daily responsibilities with less stops, thus saving them time and without having to drive across town as our Q-Post branches as well as Qtel’s are available throughout Qatar.”

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FedEx Facebook: Sending 'virtual gifts' in a company box was top download last week

Posted by | Jun 8, 2008 | |

FedEx Corp. is bouncing off the walls in the walled garden called Facebook.

In just over a week, 270,000 users have downloaded its Launchapackage.com application for sending virtual gifts, all wrapped up in a FedEx box, of course.

What you might not expect are the sounds of jet engines as the package zooms into your space, bouncing off the parameters and landing with a cool-sounding thud on the bottom of your screen.

“A year ago, we decided we wanted to see if could own virtual delivery in the social community,” said Steve Pacheco, FedEx director of advertising and the guy who helps mastermind the company’s award-winning Super Bowl ads.

“You can put anything you want in it and fling it to family and friends.”

Last week, Launchapackage was the No. 1 download out of Facebook’s 40,000 applications.

The feed is a key part of the viral spread. Because it includes news about people you’ve admitted to your site, it tends to be of high interest, he said.

“We’re able to see what times of day it is being used. And what people are sending in their packages is really great information. We’re learning more about how people socially engage,” Pacheco said.

What FedEx already knows is that the average Facebook user is plugged in 20 minutes a day. Multiply that by its 70 million active users and you have a space “where we think we need to play,” Pacheco said.

Users get the download for free. To give them reason to wrap their text, photos or video in a FedEx box, FedEx provides technology-cool interactive visuals, like the giant rubber band that stretches across your screen to send your message into the next realm.

The concept was developed with Atmosphere BBDO, the interactive arm of FedEx New York advertising agency BBDO.

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