Postal savings system
Many nations have operated banking systems involving post offices to promote saving money among the poor.
It was supported by Sir Rowland Hill, who successfully advocated the penny post, and William Ewart Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, who saw it as a cheap way to finance the public debt.
The original Post Office Savings Bank was limited to deposits of £30 per year with a maximum balance of £150.
[3] Brazil instituted a postal banking system in 2002, where the national postal service (ECT) formed a partnership with the largest private bank in the country (Bradesco) to provide financial services at post offices.
[5][6] In October 2022, Canada Post dipped its toe into the possibility of rolling out postal banking services by offering small personal loans between $1,000-$30,000 in partnership with TD Bank, but no chequing or savings accounts.
[9][10] Many rural communities, remote indigenous communities, and even some inner-city neighbourhoods, are lacking a local bank or credit union, many with either no reliable access to the internet or no affordable (or free public wifi) for internet banking.
[11] Despite the steady increase of online banking among Canadians, in 2022, the amount of cash in circulation was 25% higher than pre-pandemic levels.
It continues to provide banking services at post offices and, at the same time, some separated branches.
The postal savings bank of Hungary was established on 1 February 1886 by order of Lax IX of 1885.
[citation needed] In 1919 the Postal Savings Bank notes were issued under the decree of the Revolutionary Governing Council of the Hungarian Soviet Republic by the Magyar Postatakarékpénztár (Hungarian Postal Savings Bank).
India Post has provided an avenue for managing savings to the people living in rural or the urban poor, underserved by the formal banking system, since 1882 when Post Office Savings Bank was established.
During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, it was replaced by the Savings Office (Japanese: 貯金局, Hepburn: Chokin-kyoku, Nihon-shiki: Tyokin-kyoku) and savings were encouraged by the military administration to support the Greater East Asia War.
Between 1963 and 1968, it became the Fifth Unit of Bank Negara Indonesia during the single-bank system, made to support the guided democracy.
Currently, BTN offers a savings plan that allows its users to deposit in post offices.
This service is run on behalf of the National Treasury Management Agency with other "Ireland State Saving" schemes offered by the Irish Government, including Prize Bond.
The state-owned Japan Post Bank business unit of Japan Post was formed in 2007, as part of a ten-year privatization programme, intended to achieve fully private ownership of the postal system by 2017.
[27] Postbanken was founded in 1948 after major political battle as Norges Postsparebank, however the maximum amount allowed to be saved per person was set to NOK 10,000.
Offers transactional, savings, investments, insurance & pension banking services.
Banking counter and ATM is available in all post office, excluding postal agencies and delivery centers.
In Taiwan, the Chunghwa Post provides savings accounts and Visa debit card services in the Free Area of the Republic of China.
[36] This last account is offered in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions until 2010, through investment banking and asset management company JP Morgan.
[37] Fifty years later, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign platform included plans for postal banking.
[38] In 2018, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand supported such a program.
In 2020, after Joe Biden defeated Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, the Biden-Sanders "Unity Task Force” policy recommendations for a Biden administration, released in July, included postal banking.
[42] It would help strengthen the Postal Service's financial situation and help unbanked and underbanked people with savings and checking accounts, debit cards and low-dollar loans that they might otherwise be forced to get from payday lenders at high interest rates.
