‘Postal trade is dying and banking is the way to go’
Monday 12th April 2010, 2:30PM BST.
GUERNSEY POST’S business is dying, according to its chief executive.
Gordon Steele (pictured) said the company was more convinced than ever that diversifying into banking was right.
But that project, despite public demand and £860,000 having been spent on it, is on the backburner while its fight with the Office of Utility Regulation is ongoing.
‘The postal business is dying and it is an undeniable fact that every postal authority is seeing significant falls year on year,’ he said.
‘We are seeing volume drops from the UK of 15-20% year on year.’
He said the trend had accelerated. ‘This has really become clear in the last six months. Before that it was flatter, but now this is quite a sea change.’
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Now im confused, if Mr Steele wants to run a bank why doesnt he apply for a job doing so?
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Will this new banking business subsidise the postal costs and, if so, isn’t this an anti-competitive practice? The UK Post Office already has a banking division, of sorts, and it doesn’t seem to be working as well as they had hoped…quote from Guardian last week –
“Criticism came from George Thomson, the general secretary of the National Federation of SubPostmasters. He said: “We do have concerns about the current joint venture model with the Bank of Ireland, under which half of all profits made on existing financial service products leave the Post Office”.
Full story here – http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/29/post-office-banking-banks
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I am confused too.
On saturday he said no one would buy the business cos of the regulator – now he says the business model is kaput anyway
Which is it
How does the union feel about it – posties about to become bank tellers?
What does the Chairman (who is the chairman anyway – the invisible man?) think?
Chuckled when I read the bit about the bank not needing a lender of last resort as it was a deposit saving bank and low risk – sounds a bit like Landsbanki to me
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Time to stop deflecting the problem off to the OUR Mr Steele and accept that your biggest cost is your unionised posties on the deal of the century:
Do they still get their guaranteed one Saturday overtime a month? even if on holiday or sick? And what of if they do their rounds early – overtime for the last two hours?
Come on Mr Steele, you are a contractor here for a couple of years – what do you care? Royal mail last contract gp this contract and what about your next one? Back to Royal Mail negotiating against guernsey?
As for the story? If the RM can’t get its 60 million user to make a bank profitable how the hell can an two bit outfit such as the Guernsey post make it successful?
The OUr have it bang on. Shame on the States for letting the GP get to this withour intervening. pack your bags mr steele, your story and failures are seriously unravelling.
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Mr Steele is too funny for Guernsey…. Just imagine if i employed him to be the manager of my travelagents business. Id be scared to go on holiday cuz when I came back what would I find, maybe a newsagents or a sweetshop!
Just curious but is Ian Watson planning to go into the water business? I hope not cuz they say water and electric dont mix eh!
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Here are the results of a poll we conducted a year ago on a an NSI type Savings Scheme run by the GPL.
http://www.ifcfeed.com/articles/detail.aspx?articleid=567&categoryid=24
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If the postal trade is alledgedly dying, (the massive growth in local companies such as Moonpig 24-7 and Cheap Smells suggests otherwise however) then surely its time to focus all your resources on getting the best out of this “dying” industry rather than taking your eye off the ball and looking at banking.
Yes maybe letters are declining with the advent of Email etc, but there are courier companies doing very well at the moment, Internet trade is huge, particularly in Guernsey, ever walked into Regency Logistics at 10am??
Quite how all this business passed under Mr Steeles radar suggests his eye IS off the ball whilst he dreams of being a high flying banker because he’s missing massive opportunities.
I for one would never use any banking services they provided.
Whats next, Guernsey Electricity moving into insurance??
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Neil Inder
Your post of 13April 11.34am, is very misleading!!
Having looked at the questions in the survey you carried out I see no mention of “A Savings Scheme run by the GPL”.
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Simon
“This month Gordon Steele, Chief Executive of the Guernsey Post mooted the idea of creating a scheme similar to the UK’s NSI savings scheme. In the same week GIBA added some flesh to the bones of the initiative by supporting the move.
The results of an independent survey conducted by Guernsey digital media company Submarine Limited shows that such a scheme would find favour with Guernsey savers”
Simon, the article intro explains the poll and the original broadcast to the database did similiar. For the record it was not conducted on behalf of GPL.
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Neil Inder
Your Full of spin.
Try looking at the wording of the questions asked in the survey.
The questions did not specify a scheme “run by GPL”, but your post at 11.34am april 13th suggests that they did!
Thanks for your more recent post offering me an update on the news, patronising at best!
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Simon
The poll was generally about the concept of an NSI Savings scheme, the background being that it had been mooted by GS of the GPL. The survey results did not explicitly state that the GPL would/should run such a scheme.
“run by the GPL.” You’re right, remiss of me. I’ve slept since then.
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Neil Inder
Appology accepted :-)
We dont want an independent survey being twisted to fit now do we!
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I was under the impression that the GFSC have not granted Gsy Post a license, and have no intention of doing so. It would be great if the GFSC would confirm this.
Additionally thru the good old Gsy grapevine I believe that Gsy Post were under the impression that the States would back them fully to protect depositors funds, again this was refused.
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David
I dont recall the States taking a vote on the issue you mentioned, so who can second guess what they would do if asked?
As for the GFSC maybe, once a banking arm of the post office is established, Mr. Steele will call foul and seek a review!
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I run a local retail business in Guernsey. Due to the lack of local trade and online shopping becoming ever more popular we had to start selling online. We were posting items at the post office almost every day but as the post office has become more expensive we now find it very hard to compete online. Quite often now the post costs more than the product especially when posting non UK. We have now started to look at alternative shipping methods and failing this we will shut up shop for good. So I’m not surprised postal trade is dying.
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