Social payments
India Post has played a significant role in the country’s communication and socio-economic development for more than 150 years. During this time, it has touched the lives of almost every Indian citizen through its delivery of mail, financial services and the provision of government social benefit schemes, among a host of other people orientated activities.
New Channel for Social Grants Payment – POSOMONEY Option...
BotswanaPost's mobile wallet solution – PosoMoney, has been enlisted as a payment option for the disbursement of Social Grants following the successful approval of the BotswanaPost Mobile Money License application under the Electronic Payment Services Act of 2019 (EPS). The disbursement of funds via PosoMoney will commence on 1st June 2020.
This strategic development serves to, as well, position BotswanaPost as a diversified service aggregator. Although precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic response and the need to adhere to the social distancing protocols and guidelines, this is expected to significantly reduce queues and bring efficiencies at post offices. PosoMoney is an interoperable solution making it an ideal mobile wallet option accessible to beneficiaries regardless of their preferred mobile network operator.
Carabinieri and italian post cooperate to deliver pensions to the elderly...
Poste Italiane and the Arma dei Carabinieri have signed an agreement enabling all citizens aged 75 and over who receive social security benefits at post offices, and who normally collect their pensions in cash, to request free delivery of the sums to their home, with Carabinieri officers collecting the funds on their behalf. The service is not available to those who have already delegated other people to collect, who have a passbook or a postal account, or who reside with family members or have family living nearby.
The agreement is part of wider efforts by the two institutional partners to counter the spread of COVID 19 and mitigate its effects, which also include extraordinary measures aimed at minimizing movements and gatherings, especially of those in the highest risk categories, and ensuring that social distancing of at least one metre is observed. This initiative will also help to protect beneficiaries from criminal activities such as scams, muggings and bag snatches.
The Carabinieri and Poste Italiane will continue to provide pensions in this way to the over 75s for the duration of the COVID 19 emergency.
3,270 households will benefit from the "Tosika Fameno" programme. These households will be able to receive allowances via Paositra Money.
South Africa Post Office Unveils Cashless ATM for Sassa Social Grants. The South African Post Office (SAPO) has commenced the process of rolling out cashless ATMs that will serve as additional payment points for the payment of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) grants.
Anticipation of April pension payments. The distribution of pension payments was anticipated by 2 days to ease pensioners in cashing them in.
Anticipation of May pension payments. The distribution of pension payments was anticipated by 3 days to ease pensioners in cashing them in. CTT is also providing home delivery of the pension payments to pensioners on demand.
Home delivery of over 100k pension payments (out of 367K). CTT is delivering over 100 thousand pensions at the pensioners' door step.
Tunisian Post is limiting the collection of pensions by seniors of 75-79, and 80+ to specific dates, in order to avoid too many customers in post offices on one day. Those in retirement homes will have pension payments delivered directly to them.
An Post will shift to providing welfare payments every 2 weeks (instead of weekly) to reduce the need for customers to leave their home.
Pakistan Post will deliver pensions for retirees to their doorstep. This reduces exposure, and is convenient when banks and transport may be closed.
Remittances and access to cash
Extended opening hours of post offices for collection of pensions. In parallel to the anticipation of pension payment distribution CTT also extended the post office opening hours to facilitate elder people to cash-in their money. Over three hundred thousand pensioners are directly impacted.
Egypt Post has increased their ATM machine withdrawal limit to LE10,000 to prevent overcrowding in post offices and to encourage people to use ATMs more.
"UKRPOSHTA" will deliver money transfers free of charge during the quarantine. Ukrposhta waived commission for home delivery of money transfers.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Royal Mail have extended an existing service, allowing a trusted friend or volunteer to withdraw cash at any post office (and potentially banks, building societies and credit unions) using a single-use voucher. This allows vulnerable people who are self-isolating to maintain access to cash without having to hand over a debit card and PIN to somebody else.
Digital services
Inclusive Fintech 50, a well-reputed group of global organization driving innovation and investment in financial services for low-income populations, has named Bangladesh Postal Department's digital financial service Nagad as its top cohort of fintech startups for 2020.
Banking services
Postal small savings services extended to rural post offices...
Postal small savings services in India have now been extended to rural post offices to help people avoid commuting long distance to access such schemes.
According to a press release, the postal savings bank offices functioned only in head post offices, sub-offices and urban branch post offices. However, people in ruralareas found it difficult to travel to post offices in towns and cities during the lockdown. There are nearly three crore postal small savings accounts. The facility would help residents in rural areas to start new accounts.
India Post Payment Bank's network helped government transfer financial benefits of $54 million: NITI Aayog CEO...
The vast network of India Post Payment Bank helped the government transfer financial benefits of $54 million through 2.1 million transactions, mostly in rural and unbanked areas in the first month of lockdown.
The country faced multiple challenges with the imposition of nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19. However, the entire financial ecosystem of the country was efficient in ensuring swift transfer of funds from government to the beneficiaries through the sound banking network while following social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pakistan Post launches Digital Franchise Post Offices...
Building upon the decades of experience, and its nationwide infrastructure present at the grass-root level, Pakistan Post is now adopting modern technology to serve its customers with a host of facilities and "an All new service experience". The Digital Franchise Post Offices (DFPOs) have been equipped with state-of-the-art technology infrastructure and feature a comprehensive digital platform to streamline booking, near real-time tracking and delivery of the articles. These Digital Franchise Post Offices provide quality of services at par with the private courier services at extremely competitive prices.
The DFPOs offer all Postal services; both domestic and international as well as more than 200 Financial services such as utility bills collection, domestic remittances, education fee collection, sales of bus and train tickets, loan repayments and many more.
In order to make these DFPOs more profitable for the franchisees, Pakistan Post has granted special permission to offer a host of exciting value-added products and services; such as Photostat, sale of items such as stationary, confectionary, grocery, mobile accessories, stamp vending, notarization and any other product/service not competing with services of Pakistan Post. This will encourage more entrepreneurs to join the program and start a profitable and respectable business with a very small capital investment.
The DFPO program shall be extended further to offer fulfilment, collection and delivery services for ecommerce businesses through its nationwide network and modern technology platform. This will open new opportunities and a much wider access for small scale businesses, cottage industry and artisans of Pakistan through a massive outreach, maximizing their market potential.
The program encompasses to establish a network of 125,000 franchise offices nationwide, comprising of flagship DFPO stores, shop-in-shop concept in collaboration with large public and private institutions and upgraded branch Post Offices, carrying a potential to create hundreds of thousands of direct employments; while promising an exponential job market through indirectly stimulating various segments of economy.
The DFPO program has been launched in line with the current government's vision to reform the state institutions and transform Pakistan Post into a profitable organization; living up to its potential and legacy of service excellence that has kept it alive as a household name in every corner of the country.
Poste Italiane has enabled holders of BancoPosta accounts, savings accounts or Postepay Evolution to request the pension credit for free.
India Post delivers Rs 412cr cash in doorstep banking revolution. Between March 24 and April 23, post offices across India delivered Rs 412 crore in over 21 lakh of transactions, mostly in rural and unbanked areas.