#Usps finances full

The Postal Service is in no way, shape or form equipped to compete in the financial services space.” You should not have a repurposing of the post office to do financial services - financial services have never been more complex. “The post office is having trouble financially keeping up with just the delivery of mail and losing billions of dollars year after year for over a decade now. “This is just a bad idea that doesn’t seem to want to go away,” Merski said. The Postal Service offered banking services from 1911 to 1967. Customers at the Main Post Office in Washington in 1938. Paul Merski, the vice president for congressional relations and strategy for Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group for small banks, emphasized that the Postal Service has not provided anything beyond a few simple financial services in nearly 55 years. “While the products it will offer are not as expansive as those contained in my legislation, the Postal Banking Act, a pilot program will demonstrate the value to these communities, and show that the USPS can effectively service underbanked urban and rural communities.' “This is a great first step toward creating a postal bank,” Gillibrand said in a statement on Monday.

#Usps finances full

Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., hailed the pilot program and said that it should encourage Congress to pass her bill that would bring back postal banking in full and 'generate as much as $9 billion per year for the USPS, helping to shore up its finances.' With 1 in 4 American households unbanked or underbanked, advocates for postal banking see a huge opportunity for the Postal Service to provide access to an essential financial system while bolstering its own economic position. “It’s a case of market failure where the banking industry is not interested in serving these people because they’re not profitable enough and where the Postal Service, because it is a government service, can step in and help with that market failure and ensure those services are available,' said Christopher Shaw, a historian who wrote the books “Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic” and “Preserving the People’s Post Office.” households (24.2 million) are 'underbanked' - meaning they may have checking or savings accounts but also use financial products and services outside the banking system, such as payday lenders. census tracts with post office retail locations - representing 60 million people - do not have community bank branches, according to a study published in May by the University of Michigan.Ī lack of access, the costs associated with banking and a distrust of the banking system also have discouraged some people from using banks, leaving them out of the system entirely.Ībout 8.4 million households, or 6.5 percent of households in the U.S., are 'unbanked,' according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and 18.7 percent of U.S. Many people do not have easy access to banks, but most can find a post office. Checks larger than $500 will not be accepted.

Customers can use payroll or business checks to buy single-use gift cards worth up to $500. “We view expanded services as a win for the people of the country, a win for the Postal Service itself, because it will bring in new revenue, and, of course, a win for the postal workers who are extremely dedicated to the mission,' Dimondstein said in a phone interview.Ĭheck cashing is the biggest change in services the Postal Service provides. Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, said the test run was 'a small step in a very positive direction.' Falls Church, Virginia Baltimore and the Bronx, New York, are participating.

Select Postal Service locations in Washington, D.C. New services include check cashing, bill paying, ATM access, expanded and improved money orders and expanded wire transfers.

It would require an act of Congress to re-establish postal banking beyond the limited services the Postal Service is beginning to test, but the pilot program could act as a proof of concept. Postal banking was not explicitly called for in the plan, which Roy said would help the agency 'achieve financial sustainability and service excellence,' but it is a longtime desire of progressive politicians and advocates whose attempts to push it through Congress in recent years have been met with little success.