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Lati Matata, Director of the UPU’s Postal Technology Centre, shares how the International Postal System (IPS) revolutionized global operations when it was launched 30 years ago and how it will be fundamental to the sector’s next big transformation: interoperability with the wider sector players.
La version française à venirFollowing its launch in 1996, the International Postal System – better known as IPS – became the first global end-to-end mail management system enabling postal operators in the UPU’s network to communicate the status of postal items.
While some postal operators had begun to develop their own solutions to manage mail processing, they were disjointed and required massive individual efforts of each operator. In contrast, the Telematics Cooperative and its execution arm, the Postal Technology Centre (PTC), took a holistic approach, working with a group of interested member countries to develop a scalable solution. The result is a platform connecting more than 190 postal operators that has been credited for the accelerated globalization of postal services. The exchange of postal data has been growing 16% year-on-year since 2021, which saw a baseline of 167 million messages observed on the UPU’s postal IT network, Post*Net.
“It was pioneering in that a few postal operators came together to build a technology solution that would benefit the entire network of postal operators in the 192 member countries. This altruistic objective echoes the foundation of the UPU, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” says Lati Matata, who joined the UPU Postal Technology Centre (PTC) in the early days of IPS and has helped shape its development over more than 25 years.
Evolution of data-driven mail
IPS was conceived to enable track-and-trace of postal items by facilitating the exchange of UPU electronic data interchange (EDI) messages, but it has evolved over the years with inputs from UPU member countries, changing standards and regulations, and changing technology.
IPS was expanded to include additional partners in the postal supply chain, such as carriers. Later improvements enabled posts to conduct management functions like accounting and terminal dues calculations in the platform. As IPS began to collect more and better data from a greater number of sources, the UPU was able to develop value-added services like quality-of-service improvement programmes, such as performance reporting and pay-for-performance, as well as advanced analytics on sector trends, using the tool.
Based on the needs and feedback of UPU member countries, the PTC also developed a line of products tailored to the infrastructure and business objectives of postal operators in the network. The original IPS offers the full range of mail management functions and is hosted on the postal operator’s infrastructure. IPS.POST is a pared-back cloud version of the technology hosted by the UPU and designed for small mail volume postal operators. The newest addition is IPS Cloud, which boasts the full functionality of IPS offered in a cloud solution hosted by the UPU, reducing equipment and maintenance costs for operators.
“IPS is kept up to date, at no additional cost, with the evolution of postal standards and regulations. This means, with the large IPS deployment footprint, practically the entire UPU network of postal operators generates compliant postal data within a reasonable short period of time after any changes in regulations or improvements in UPU standards,” he elaborates.
Today, IPS is still considered a cornerstone technology for the PTC and further developments, from the Domestic Postal System (DPS) to the Customs Declaration System (CDS), have been modeled after its example.
“The culture of continuous improvement of the PTC very much started with IPS, as it was impossible to develop a solution for all postal operators at once. So continuous enhancement of IPS to fulfil individual postal operator needs, which may then be useful to other postal operators, was the core principle,” Matata explains.
He also credits the solution for revolutionizing the use of data to develop postal products.
“When IPS was developed in 1996, track and trace was still in its infancy. Thirty years later, mail does not even move without that data. IPS galvanized the shift to the data-driven UPU mail products we have today,” says Matata, who adds that the recently developed UPU delivered duty paid (DDP) solution is a beneficiary of this shift.
Single entry-point solution
While IPS has had a competitive edge over other providers for 30 years, but Matata says the UPU won’t rest on its laurels.
He outlines plans under the UPU’s Technology Strategy for 2026-2029, which envisions a Global UPU Technology Platform whereby both postal operators and non-postal operators can access a single-entry solution for every business function across the supply chain.
“For example, the emerging national, regional and global requirements on customs procedures, both security and fiscal, for example, have made the PTC view IPS and the other solutions – Customs Declaration System (CDS), Domestic Postal System (DPS) and Post*Net – as an integrated set of solutions which provide a complete technology platform for a postal operator. This means it is necessary for all solutions to work together to fulfil postal business needs,” he says.
Two elements are critical to making this vision a success: strengthened cybersecurity and interoperability with wider postal sector players.
The PTC has already implemented a number of internationally recognized cybersecurity standards in relation to its platforms and information management. The next step is creating an Information Sharing and Analysis Centre for the postal sector (POST-ISAC) that will enable the entire UPU network and partners to share threat intelligence, build cyber resilience capacity and ensure sector-wide adoption of cybersecurity standards.
To develop a truly global solution, wider postal sector players – including technological solutions providers – will have to be able to interface with the solution. Matata refers to the interoperability with non-postal operators a “win-win-win” scenario – private companies get access to an established global network, postal operators can benefit from additional e-commerce volumes via commercial partners, but without added complexity, and the UPU reaffirms its place as the fulcrum for international postal cooperation.
To preserve the stability and security of the network, any non-postal partners will have to meet a set of standards defined by the UPU and certifiable under its UPU-TechCert programme. Several companies have already undergone the process and met the qualifications.
“This is a step forward for the UPU in showing that the postal sector is for everyone,” says Matata.
This article first appeared in Union Postale Winter 2025/2026.