Important! Please Get Involved With Your Local Post Office

[sazz]

Hi guys,

after going to my local post office today, I noticed a petition was on the counter. I asked the lady what it was for and apparently the Government are withdrawing support for the Post Office bank account from 2010. It's more than likely Royal Mail will cease this operation, leaving many vulnerable people without even basic banking facilities. Considering also that quite a high percentage of benefit claimers (as myself!) MUST have their benefits paid into a bank.

 

the little snippet is here: http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rmg/content1?catId=23200554&mediaId=23700541

With the withdrawal of the Post Office® Card Account in 2010, the network’s revenue from work done for the Government will shrink to less than 10% of overall business.

 

So much for this: http://www.dti.gov.uk/postalservices/universal_bank.htm

The concept of a ‘Universal Bank’ arose as a means to help implement the Government’s objectives for tackling financial exclusion. In its report of June 2000 on the future of the Post Office network, the Performance and Innovation Unit recommended the introduction of a Universal Bank as a means to help tackle financial exclusion and ensure that benefit recipients would continue to be able to collect their cash at post offices following the decision by the Department for Work and Pensions to make Direct Payment into accounts the normal way of paying benefits.

 

My post office have a petition regarding this and I suggest you mention it to your local, if they're not doing anything about it. I would imagine the Post Office are just as cheesed off as their customers...

 

Is this government in the pockets or what?!

[seylectric]

The Post Office/Royal Mail itself may suffer, but it won't directly affect the public. All banks by law have to offer a basic bank account, and several of those already have banking facilities via the post office counter, and more are to be added.

 

It could be that the Post Office are winding down the service in favour of operating a public counter for banks such as LLoydsTSB and internet-based banks like Co-Op Smile. The Post Office bank account service isn't profitable anyway (If I remember rightly, I read about this somewhere recently, but it would explain why the government have to subsidise it) so the same counter service will still be available and nothing will have changed for the customer except the bank logo on the ATM card.

 

...and if it saves the taxpayer money I'm not complaining, although the government will no doubt waste it all on something else.

 

 

Why this country, with it's overall wealth, has to subsidise anything is beyond me although that's a seperate topic altogether.

[monkey_uk]

The Post Office/Royal Mail itself may suffer, but it won't directly affect the public.

 

Of course it will directly affect the public.

 

 

Where would you go to send a Special Delivery item of mail?

 

What about paying a bill? You'd have to go "in to town" to a bank rather than to

the Post Office in the middle of your estate (your = generally speaking!)

 

That's to name just two.

 

 

 

I'm locking this thread as I "stickyed" it more for information than discussion.

[sazz]

This topic was closed on 08 March 2019.

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