Tag: North America

Authentidate Announces New Agreement to Provide U.S. Postal Service EPM Service

Posted by | Jul 26, 2007 | |

Authentidate Holding Corp. announced a new three-year agreement with the U.S. Postal Service(R) (USPS) to act as a non-exclusive authorized service provider of the USPS Electronic Postmark(R) (EPM).

Authentidate is the first provider to be authorized in a new standards- based, EPM(R) model created by the Postal Service to help ensure performance standards and facilitate the potential for enabling multiple service providers. The new agreement with Authentidate follows a revised strategy by the USPS(R) for the EPM program that was announced in October 2006. Under this new framework, the USPS will license the necessary trademarks and intellectual property to potential authorized providers, allowing them to independently price, as well as market, issue and verify EPMs. In order to ensure a unified level of service across all providers the Postal Service will define and maintain the technical and operational standards for the EPM service, and serve as backup verifier for all EPMs issued across all providers.

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Board of Governors to meet August 7-8, 2007 in Washington, DC

Posted by | Jul 26, 2007 | |

The Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service will meet in Washington, DC, at Postal Service Headquarters, 475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW, on Aug. 7-8, 2007. The public is welcome to observe the Board’s open session, scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 8 in the Ben Franklin Room on the 11th floor. The Board is expected to discuss the following items:
1. Minutes of the previous meetings, May 1-2; June 19; and July 10, 2007.
2. Remarks of the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Board (Jim Miller and Alan Kessler).
3. Remarks of the Postmaster General and CEO John Potter.
4. Committee reports.
5. Quarterly Report on Service Performance (Delores Killette, Consumer Advocate and Vice President).
6. Quarterly Report on Financial Performance (Glen Walker, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President).
7. Tentative agenda for the Sept. 25-26, 2007, meeting in Washington, DC.

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Mail delivery stats track city's growth

Posted by | Jul 26, 2007 | |

Mail delivery statistics from the U.S. Postal Service suggest that New Orleans’ population may have reached nearly two-thirds of its pre-Katrina level, or about 300,000 people, in June, according to a group tracking recovery trends.

That number is higher than recent estimates compiled by other methods.

Households “actively receiving mail” in Orleans Parish in June reached 66 percent of the pre-Katrina figure of 198,232, recorded in July 2005. That level is up from 49.5 percent last August, according to numbers released Wednesday by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center on the basis of Postal Service delivery statistics.

The Census Bureau placed the city’s population on July 1, 2005, two months before Hurricane Katrina hit, at just under 455,000, and 66 percent of that number would be 300,000.

The data center said the number of Jefferson Parish households receiving mail in June amounted to 98.2 percent of the parish’s pre-Katrina figure. The June figure for St. Tammany Parish was 103.2 percent, but in St. Bernard it was only 35.9 percent.

For the four-parish area, the number of households receiving mail in June was 82.9 percent of the pre-Katrina total, up from a low of 76.1 percent in August 2006, the Community Data Center said.

The center said that maps showing the percentages of active-mail households across New Orleans “reveal that many parts of the more heavily flooded neighborhoods are showing notable resurgence.”

Although the lowest monthly mail-delivery figure reported for Orleans Parish since Katrina was 49.5 percent in August, that does not mean the city never dipped below about 50 percent of its pre-storm population. The Postal Service was unable to compile meaningful numbers for several months after the storm, said Allison Plyer, deputy director of the data center.

Eventually, she said, the service was able to restore reliable data-gathering, and household counts have grown steadily since August.

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Western Union services now available at 587 additional locations in Mexico

Posted by | Jul 26, 2007 | |

The Western Union Company, and Grupo Elektra, a leading retail and financial services company, announced that 587 Farmacias Benavides locations throughout Mexico are offering Western Union consumer money-transfer services.

Grupo Elektra has offered Western Union services since 1993. The company currently offers Western Union services through 2,000 Agent locations in Mexico, including Salinas y Rocha, Elektra and Banco Azteca.

Farmacias Benavides, a well-recognized and established pharmacy chain in Mexico, offers consumers the option to receive Western Union consumer money transfers at 587 locations in 16 states and 110 cities throughout Mexico. Most Farmacias Benavides locations are open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and some are open 24 hours.

In addition, the chain plans to roll out the money transfer services of Western Union subsidiaries Orlandi Valuta and Vigo within a year.

“We remain committed to offering additional locations to our consumers in Mexico, and this agreement extends our in-country reach while strengthening our unmatched global Agent network,” said Liz Alicea-Velez, Executive Vice President, Latin America and the Caribbean, Western Union.

With these 587 locations, the total number of Mexico Agent locations offering Western Union, Orlandi Valuta and Vigo services is approximately 13,700.

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UPS introduces new way to manage urgent shipments

Posted by | Jul 25, 2007 | |

UPS announced the launch of UPS Express Criticalsm, a service that meshes all of UPS’s same-day and urgent capabilities into a single suite, allowing customers to more effectively manage package and heavy freight shipments together.

For the first time in the industry, customers have a single point of contact regardless of whether they’re shipping a small package or a 1,000 pound machine part – air or ground, domestic or international. Customers now have a single call center, one bill and one Website to manifest and track their truly urgent shipments.

A single “touch point” for all urgent shipping is a convenience UPS has worked to provide by meshing the capabilities of UPS SonicAir, the UPS Airlines and UPS Freight. UPS has access to virtually any type of aircraft or vehicle around the world – both those in its own fleets and those of vendors – meaning customers have a variety of time options, specialized equipment, communication systems, advanced tracking and worldwide reach to meet their needs.

UPS Express Critical likewise makes billing simple, allowing package shippers to bill their freight shipments on their package account and vice versa.

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