Tag: UK

UK Post Office offers alternative to issuing cheques

Posted by | Jun 12, 2007 | |

Post Office payout allows companies to distribute promotional incentives, refunds and cash payments at a fraction of the cost of issuing cheques. Using the latest barcode technology, companies simply send a reference code by text, email or post which customers take to any of the UK’s 14,000 Post Office branches to receive an instant cash payment.

The Post Office payout solution can be tailored to meet the needs of individual businesses, with identity verification available to provide increased security for higher value transactions. An optional data capture service is also available to allow you to gather valuable market intelligence about customers’ preferences and purchasing habits.

Not only does Post Office payout make it quicker and easier for customers to receive payments, it also removes barriers for businesses making payments to people who do not have a bank account. The service also offers the option to send payments using postal orders so your customers can pay it into their bank account.

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Poland, Bulgaria and Croatia now on tourists’ most wanted list as currency sales boom

Posted by | Jun 12, 2007 | |

Tourists are heading east on holiday to a trio of former Eastern bloc countries in search of low prices and new sights to stimulate sore eyes. With currency sales close to double last year’s levels, Poland heads the Post Office® list of Fastest Growing Currencies, with Bulgaria and Croatia in fast pursuit.

Further east still, three long haul destinations – China, Egypt and Dubai – complete the line up of currencies whose growth levels are outstripping those of traditional favourites like Spain and Greece.

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Royal Mail urged to split postal business

Posted by | Jun 11, 2007 | |

Royal Mail, which is rapidly losing contracts for handling mail since the market was opened to competition, should follow BT’s example by splitting its postal operation into two independent businesses, according to a former chief executive.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Bill Cockburn said that while competitors were collecting and sorting an increasing share of business mail, they continued to rely on Royal Mail to deliver more than 98 per cent of it to homes and workplaces across the UK.

“The delivery force has a fantastic reputation and is trusted by its customers,” he said. “Royal Mail has a strategic opportunity to develop this part of the business and use the spare capacity it undoubtedly has.”

Mr Cockburn, who joined the then Post Office in 1961 and rose to become its chief executive in 1992, stood down in 1995 and was managing director of BT’s UK operations between 1997 and 2001. He is now deputy chairman of Business Post, whose UK Mail division handles more than 5 per cent of Britain’s mail.

He said Royal Mail, which faces the threat of strikes over pay and modernisation, had been too defensive since it lost its monopoly. It needed to learn from the privatised utilities how to take advantage of a competitive market.

BT was split into a retail operation, which sold services to customers, and a wholesale business – Openreach – that runs the local networks used by all telephone companies.

“The wholesale side has burgeoned into a huge business that makes a big contribution to profit,” Mr Cockburn said. “It made a lot of sense to open it to competitors.”

But the state-owned operator needed to become more like BT, where the two arms were wholly independent.

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MPs condemn Royal Mail’s lack of vision over post offices

Posted by | Jun 9, 2007 | |

MPs condemned Royal Mail for lacking imagination and entrepreneurial flair in the way in which it manages its loss-making post office network.

The Trade and Industry Select Committee criticised the Government for not taking more responsibility for looking after the network rather than leaving it to Royal Mail.

It said that the postal group had “failed to show sufficient imagination or entrepreneurial flair in developing services so far, or properly to understand the realities of managing a network of often very small businesses”.

The criticism comes as 2,500 more post offices are about to close because the network is unprofitable. The programme of closures was agreed by the Department of Trade and Industry ahead of a GBP 3.9 billion rescue package for the postal group.

Although the all-party group of MPs said that new management at Royal Mail’s post office division “seems to be awakening from its lethargy”, they added: “We think that the Government, as sole shareholder and representative of the taxpayer, has a responsibility to ensure that Royal Mail Group as a whole gives proper attention to increasing the competitiveness of the network rather than just managing its decline.”

The committee said that there could be more closures “sooner rather than later” unless the Government gave proper attention to maintaining the network after its restructuring.

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Postal workers have voted to hold their first nationwide strike in more than a decade.

Posted by | Jun 8, 2007 | |

Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) yesterday voted almost four to one in favour of industrial action over pay.

The Royal Mail has offered a 2.5% pay rise, while the CWU is holding out for a 4.8% increase.

A series of walkouts will now be held by up to 130,000 CWU members unless a compromise is reached.

CWU deputy general secretary, Dave Ward, said: “This yes vote shows clearly that Royal Mail workers have rejected the company’s business plan, the company’s leadership and the unacceptable pay offer.

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