2014年5月5日月曜日

Post-office banking

Post-office banking
put your money where your mail is

Topic of the article:
l   The article is about the United States Postal Service (USPS), the second largest employer in America with a workforce of just over 491,000 in 2013. Since the rise of e-mail makes people less use postal service, USPS has to find new ways to raise revenues.
l   This article introduces a report suggesting that the post offices should begin offering financial services for the people who cannot get fully access to financial services. The simple reason is that a lot of Americans have scant access to banks and a lot of post offices have little to do.

Main support:
l   Over 1/4 American households are unbanked or underbanked, meaning that they either lack a current or savings account, or they have one but still use alternatives to banks such as cheque-cashers and payday lenders. The average households spend around 9.5% of their income on fees and interest charged by substitutes of banks.
l   High-street banks find it hard to make money serving poor customers, since they tend to have little money on deposit that banks can lend out. 
l   These customers are distressed so they need rescues from USPS. It has plenty of post offices in rural areas that already provide some financial services such as money orders and remittances to Latin American countries. That could save low-income customers the financial cost.

Oppositions:
l   Some refutes the proposal. They insist that the Government overreaches itself and USPS should cut its size. Others mention that it has zero capacity, understanding and capability of financial services and state that post offices in rural areas have limited value because financial services in rural areas are already enough and convenient.

Additional support:
l   Roughly 1 billion people in 50 countries have benefitted by their postal systems according to the Universal Postal Union, the United Nations agency that helps post arrive on time.

l   A World Bank study found last year that postal banks are likelier than conventional ones to provide accounts to those outside the financial main stream.

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