Tag: Royal Mail

Postcomm today (4 November 2004) sought views on Royal Mail’s intention to charge customers different prices depending on how they pay for their post. From 1 April 2005, Royal Mail proposes to charge customers who pay for postage using a meter/franking machine, or Printed Postage Impression (PPI), less than those who stick a stamp on an envelope. Royal Mail’s current intention is to introduce a 1p differential between the payment methods. Similar changes would be made to its international Airmail and Surface Mail products. Royal Mail is able to make these changes under its current price control.

The postal regulator has threatened disciplinary action against Royal Mail, including the forced break-up of the group, if it uses anti-competitive practices to resist liberalisation in the market. Speaking at the UK Mail Show in London, Nigel Stapleton, chairman of Postcomm, said the aim of liberalisation was to deliver better value and more innovative services to customers. He warned that in the past other monopoly providers in the process of deregulation “have indulged in anti-competitive practices, often by accident rather than by design, such as predatory pricing or discrimination between customers”. Mr Stapleton said that so far there had been only one case of alleged anti-competitive behaviour at Royal Mail, when it was accused last year of offering preferential rates to certain business customers, although no action was taken. But the regulator would watch out for any abuses at Royal Mail, and act quickly to punish them.