Nigeria to set up Post Office Bank

Post Master General of the Nigerian Postal Service, Nipost, Mr. Bisi Adegbuyi has disclosed plans by the service to set up a National Post Office Bank.

Adegbuyi disclosed this during the annual staff award and recognition ceremony of the Postal

service held in Abuja. Adegbuyi said the plan to float the Post bank was informed by the peculiarities and circumstances in Nigeria that calls for the Post banking system in line with the global best practice.

He said “With the collapse of some commercial banks in the rural areas due to lack of innovation and introduction of technology the new Post Bank as an agency bank will add to our revenue and do exactly what a Post Bank can do.
‘‘I think that issue has been laid to rest in line with the global best practice, and I need to make this clarification. whether a country needs a Post Bank is a function of its peculiarities. There is Post Bank in India and there is no Post Bank in Kenya, there is also no Post Bank in America.

‘‘If commercial banks today are closing their branches in the rural areas because of innovativeness and new technologies, I think is now right for us to establish Post Bank in these areas.

‘‘We will do it as agency banking that will add to our revenue and do exactly what a Post Bank can do. All the plans are afoot. Our technical advisers have advised us to do a cocktail of payment settlement: agency banking and financial services that we can comparatively and advantageously go into without adding to our already heavy recurrent expenditure that is today a major albatross for Nigerian postal services.’’

On the impact of technology, the Nipost boss said deployment of technology will improve operational efficiency in the agency.
‘‘It depends on what kind of technology you want to deploy. We are currently talking to experts on how to reduce the recurrent expenditure content of the budget of NIPOST.

‘‘When you introduce technology into NIPOST to improve what is called track and trace, which is the soul of the service anywhere in the world: For somebody to post a letter or parcel and be able to track it”.