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Post-office banking
郵政銀行
Put your money where your mail is
郵件在哪兒，錢就在哪兒
America's postal service ponders a foray into financial services
美郵政業(yè)或?qū)⑸孀憬鹑跇I(yè)
WITH a workforce of just over 491,000 in 2013, the United States Postal Service is second only to Walmart among civilian employers in America. But it still employed more than 200,000 fewer people last year than it did just nine years earlier—when it handled nearly 500m more pieces of mail and had almost 2,000 more retail offices. The rise of e-mail has left America's massive postal service with far less to do, and it has been scrambling to find ways to raise revenue.
2013年，美國(guó)郵政服務(wù)公司雇員超過(guò)491000人，成為僅次于沃爾瑪?shù)拿绹?guó)第二大雇主。九年前美郵需要處理近5億封郵件，擁有2000多個(gè)辦事處，和那時(shí)相比去年還是減少了超過(guò)20萬(wàn)雇員。電子郵件的崛起導(dǎo)致美國(guó)大量的郵政服務(wù)沒什么業(yè)務(wù)可做，他們開始尋求其他的收入增長(zhǎng)點(diǎn)。
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Earlier this year its inspector-general released a white paper suggesting that post offices should begin offering financial services, such as cheque-cashing, small loans, bill payments, international money transfers and prepaid cards to which salaries or benefits could be transferred. The reasoning is simple: a lot of Americans have scant access to banks and a lot of post offices have too little to do.
今年初，美郵總監(jiān)發(fā)布的白皮書顯示郵政業(yè)要開始提供金融服務(wù)，這些服務(wù)包括支票兌現(xiàn)，小額貸款，賬單支付，國(guó)際轉(zhuǎn)賬以及能夠預(yù)支的工資卡。這么做的原因很簡(jiǎn)單：許多美國(guó)人對(duì)銀行的需求得不到滿足而一堆郵局又無(wú)事可做。
More than one-quarter of American households are unbanked or underbanked, meaning they either lack a current or savings account, or they have one but still use alternatives to banks such as cheque-cashers and payday lenders. That is an expensive habit: the average underbanked household has an annual income of only $25,500 or so, yet spends around 9.5% of that on fees and interest charged by these banking substitutes.
超過(guò)四分之一的美國(guó)家庭沒有銀行賬戶或者沒有得到充足的金融服務(wù)，這意味著他們沒有這種傾向或者沒有儲(chǔ)蓄賬戶，也可能他們有賬戶，但選擇如支票承兌人或發(fā)薪日貸款人等替代方式。這是種代價(jià)很高的習(xí)慣：一般來(lái)說(shuō)沒有銀行賬戶的家庭年均收入25500美元，而支付給這種銀行替代機(jī)構(gòu)的費(fèi)用和利息達(dá)到9.5%左右。
High-street banks find it hard to make money serving poor customers, since they tend to have little money on deposit that the banks can lend out. Penalties such as overdraft fees are not always enough to compensate. Since 2008, 93% of bank-branch closings have come in areas where median household income is below the national average.
大型銀行為窮人提供服務(wù)很難賺到錢，因?yàn)樗麄兊拇婵钐?，而銀行要把這些錢貸出去。透支費(fèi)這種懲罰措施并不總是能夠償還成本。自2008年起，93%的支行陷入這樣的境地—家庭賬戶收入的中值低于國(guó)家平均水平。
These are the distressed customers to whose rescue the USPS hopes to ride. Some 59% of its post offices are in places with either a single bank or none at all. In rural hamlets they are often one of very few commercial establishments; even in the postal service's diminished state, there are still more than seven post offices for every Walmart in America. Post offices already sell money orders and provide electronic remittances to nine Latin American countries; from 1911 to 1967 the USPS also held personal deposits. Providing small, brief loans at lower interest rates than payday lenders could save low-income consumers hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in interest and fees. The post office would compete not with banks, but with their more expensive stand-ins.
正式這些貧窮的顧客點(diǎn)燃了美郵的希望。美郵59%的郵政所周圍只有一家或者沒有銀行。在美國(guó)鄉(xiāng)下，他們常常是為數(shù)不多的商業(yè)機(jī)構(gòu)之一;即使是在郵政服務(wù)日益蕭條的州，郵政所和沃爾瑪?shù)臄?shù)量比也大于7:1。郵政所造就開始向9個(gè)拉丁美洲國(guó)家賣郵政匯票并提供電子匯款服務(wù);1911年到1967年之間，美郵還有個(gè)人存款業(yè)務(wù)。提供利率比發(fā)薪日貸款人低的小額短期貸款，能為低收入客戶節(jié)省數(shù)億甚至數(shù)十億美元的利息和費(fèi)用。郵政局不是和銀行競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，而是在和比銀行收費(fèi)高的替代機(jī)構(gòu)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)。
Some, notably the head of the committee of the House of Representatives that oversees the USPS, are unconvinced. They see the postal services' expansion into financial services as government overreach, and a delay of the necessary “right-sizing” of a massive agency that does far less than it used to. Jennifer Tescher, who heads a charity focused on the underbanked called the Centre for Financial Services Innovation, notes that the USPS “has zero capacity, understanding or capability in this arena”. “The only asset they bring to the table”, she believes, “is distribution.” Even that is of limited value outside rural areas: Ms Tescher notes that just because a spot lacks bank branches does not mean it has no cheque-cashers and corner shops selling prepaid cards—many with longer and more convenient opening hours than the post office.
眾議院委員會(huì)負(fù)責(zé)人指出美郵的做法明顯不具信服力。他們把郵政業(yè)擴(kuò)張到金融領(lǐng)域的行為視作政府的手伸的太長(zhǎng)，認(rèn)為這是在拖延這個(gè)遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)低于過(guò)去功效的大型機(jī)構(gòu)合理精簡(jiǎn)的步伐。一個(gè)專注于那些無(wú)法得到充分金融服務(wù)的人的慈善團(tuán)體—金融服務(wù)創(chuàng)新中心的負(fù)責(zé)人詹妮弗說(shuō)美郵不了解這一領(lǐng)域，既沒資格也沒能力。她相信美郵的優(yōu)勢(shì)是渠道，即使這在農(nóng)村以外地區(qū)基本沒有價(jià)值。Tescher女士提到這些區(qū)域缺少銀行網(wǎng)點(diǎn)并不意味著沒有支票承兌人和販賣預(yù)付卡的小店—和郵局相比，他們的營(yíng)業(yè)時(shí)間更長(zhǎng)、更方便。
Although turning the USPS into a part-time financial institution may seem outlandish in America, roughly 1 billion people in 50 countries rely on their postal systems for financial services, according to the Universal Postal Union, the United Nations agency that helps the post arrive on time. The business models vary widely. In some countries post offices act as a payment centre, allowing people to receive remittances, pay bills and top up or tap money stored on their mobile phones. Some operate full-service banks: Japan Post, for instance, is one of the world's biggest. In other countries, such as Brazil, commercial banks form partnerships with post offices; in Malawi private banks can rent space from post offices.
根據(jù)萬(wàn)國(guó)郵政聯(lián)盟，盡管美郵成為兼職的金融機(jī)構(gòu)在美國(guó)看起來(lái)很奇怪，但世界上50個(gè)國(guó)家的10億人依靠郵政系統(tǒng)提供的金融服務(wù)。這種商業(yè)模式差別很大。在一些國(guó)家，郵局充當(dāng)支付中心的角色，人們可以接收匯款、支付賬單利用移動(dòng)電話存取款。有一些則成為提供全面服務(wù)的銀行：比如日本郵政就是世界上的銀行之一。在像巴西一類國(guó)家，商業(yè)銀行和郵政成為合作伙伴;在馬拉維，私人銀行能向郵局租借場(chǎng)地。
A World Bank study found last year that postal banks are likelier than conventional ones to provide accounts to those outside the financial mainstream. The bigger the postal network, the greater the ability to reach such people. That may not convince those who would like to see the USPS shrink, but for those who want to preserve it, it could help to justify its scale.
去年世界銀行研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，相對(duì)于傳統(tǒng)銀行，郵政銀行更有可能為主流金融區(qū)域之外的人提供服務(wù)。郵政網(wǎng)絡(luò)越大，接觸到這些人的能力就越大。這也許不足以說(shuō)服那些希望美郵精簡(jiǎn)的人，但對(duì)于那些想要保持它的人來(lái)說(shuō)，這能幫助他們證明美郵規(guī)模的合理性。
Put your money where your mail is
郵件在哪兒，錢就在哪兒
America's postal service ponders a foray into financial services
美郵政業(yè)或?qū)⑸孀憬鹑跇I(yè)
WITH a workforce of just over 491,000 in 2013, the United States Postal Service is second only to Walmart among civilian employers in America. But it still employed more than 200,000 fewer people last year than it did just nine years earlier—when it handled nearly 500m more pieces of mail and had almost 2,000 more retail offices. The rise of e-mail has left America's massive postal service with far less to do, and it has been scrambling to find ways to raise revenue.
2013年，美國(guó)郵政服務(wù)公司雇員超過(guò)491000人，成為僅次于沃爾瑪?shù)拿绹?guó)第二大雇主。九年前美郵需要處理近5億封郵件，擁有2000多個(gè)辦事處，和那時(shí)相比去年還是減少了超過(guò)20萬(wàn)雇員。電子郵件的崛起導(dǎo)致美國(guó)大量的郵政服務(wù)沒什么業(yè)務(wù)可做，他們開始尋求其他的收入增長(zhǎng)點(diǎn)。
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Earlier this year its inspector-general released a white paper suggesting that post offices should begin offering financial services, such as cheque-cashing, small loans, bill payments, international money transfers and prepaid cards to which salaries or benefits could be transferred. The reasoning is simple: a lot of Americans have scant access to banks and a lot of post offices have too little to do.
今年初，美郵總監(jiān)發(fā)布的白皮書顯示郵政業(yè)要開始提供金融服務(wù)，這些服務(wù)包括支票兌現(xiàn)，小額貸款，賬單支付，國(guó)際轉(zhuǎn)賬以及能夠預(yù)支的工資卡。這么做的原因很簡(jiǎn)單：許多美國(guó)人對(duì)銀行的需求得不到滿足而一堆郵局又無(wú)事可做。
More than one-quarter of American households are unbanked or underbanked, meaning they either lack a current or savings account, or they have one but still use alternatives to banks such as cheque-cashers and payday lenders. That is an expensive habit: the average underbanked household has an annual income of only $25,500 or so, yet spends around 9.5% of that on fees and interest charged by these banking substitutes.
超過(guò)四分之一的美國(guó)家庭沒有銀行賬戶或者沒有得到充足的金融服務(wù)，這意味著他們沒有這種傾向或者沒有儲(chǔ)蓄賬戶，也可能他們有賬戶，但選擇如支票承兌人或發(fā)薪日貸款人等替代方式。這是種代價(jià)很高的習(xí)慣：一般來(lái)說(shuō)沒有銀行賬戶的家庭年均收入25500美元，而支付給這種銀行替代機(jī)構(gòu)的費(fèi)用和利息達(dá)到9.5%左右。
High-street banks find it hard to make money serving poor customers, since they tend to have little money on deposit that the banks can lend out. Penalties such as overdraft fees are not always enough to compensate. Since 2008, 93% of bank-branch closings have come in areas where median household income is below the national average.
大型銀行為窮人提供服務(wù)很難賺到錢，因?yàn)樗麄兊拇婵钐?，而銀行要把這些錢貸出去。透支費(fèi)這種懲罰措施并不總是能夠償還成本。自2008年起，93%的支行陷入這樣的境地—家庭賬戶收入的中值低于國(guó)家平均水平。
These are the distressed customers to whose rescue the USPS hopes to ride. Some 59% of its post offices are in places with either a single bank or none at all. In rural hamlets they are often one of very few commercial establishments; even in the postal service's diminished state, there are still more than seven post offices for every Walmart in America. Post offices already sell money orders and provide electronic remittances to nine Latin American countries; from 1911 to 1967 the USPS also held personal deposits. Providing small, brief loans at lower interest rates than payday lenders could save low-income consumers hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in interest and fees. The post office would compete not with banks, but with their more expensive stand-ins.
正式這些貧窮的顧客點(diǎn)燃了美郵的希望。美郵59%的郵政所周圍只有一家或者沒有銀行。在美國(guó)鄉(xiāng)下，他們常常是為數(shù)不多的商業(yè)機(jī)構(gòu)之一;即使是在郵政服務(wù)日益蕭條的州，郵政所和沃爾瑪?shù)臄?shù)量比也大于7:1。郵政所造就開始向9個(gè)拉丁美洲國(guó)家賣郵政匯票并提供電子匯款服務(wù);1911年到1967年之間，美郵還有個(gè)人存款業(yè)務(wù)。提供利率比發(fā)薪日貸款人低的小額短期貸款，能為低收入客戶節(jié)省數(shù)億甚至數(shù)十億美元的利息和費(fèi)用。郵政局不是和銀行競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，而是在和比銀行收費(fèi)高的替代機(jī)構(gòu)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)。
Some, notably the head of the committee of the House of Representatives that oversees the USPS, are unconvinced. They see the postal services' expansion into financial services as government overreach, and a delay of the necessary “right-sizing” of a massive agency that does far less than it used to. Jennifer Tescher, who heads a charity focused on the underbanked called the Centre for Financial Services Innovation, notes that the USPS “has zero capacity, understanding or capability in this arena”. “The only asset they bring to the table”, she believes, “is distribution.” Even that is of limited value outside rural areas: Ms Tescher notes that just because a spot lacks bank branches does not mean it has no cheque-cashers and corner shops selling prepaid cards—many with longer and more convenient opening hours than the post office.
眾議院委員會(huì)負(fù)責(zé)人指出美郵的做法明顯不具信服力。他們把郵政業(yè)擴(kuò)張到金融領(lǐng)域的行為視作政府的手伸的太長(zhǎng)，認(rèn)為這是在拖延這個(gè)遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)低于過(guò)去功效的大型機(jī)構(gòu)合理精簡(jiǎn)的步伐。一個(gè)專注于那些無(wú)法得到充分金融服務(wù)的人的慈善團(tuán)體—金融服務(wù)創(chuàng)新中心的負(fù)責(zé)人詹妮弗說(shuō)美郵不了解這一領(lǐng)域，既沒資格也沒能力。她相信美郵的優(yōu)勢(shì)是渠道，即使這在農(nóng)村以外地區(qū)基本沒有價(jià)值。Tescher女士提到這些區(qū)域缺少銀行網(wǎng)點(diǎn)并不意味著沒有支票承兌人和販賣預(yù)付卡的小店—和郵局相比，他們的營(yíng)業(yè)時(shí)間更長(zhǎng)、更方便。
Although turning the USPS into a part-time financial institution may seem outlandish in America, roughly 1 billion people in 50 countries rely on their postal systems for financial services, according to the Universal Postal Union, the United Nations agency that helps the post arrive on time. The business models vary widely. In some countries post offices act as a payment centre, allowing people to receive remittances, pay bills and top up or tap money stored on their mobile phones. Some operate full-service banks: Japan Post, for instance, is one of the world's biggest. In other countries, such as Brazil, commercial banks form partnerships with post offices; in Malawi private banks can rent space from post offices.
根據(jù)萬(wàn)國(guó)郵政聯(lián)盟，盡管美郵成為兼職的金融機(jī)構(gòu)在美國(guó)看起來(lái)很奇怪，但世界上50個(gè)國(guó)家的10億人依靠郵政系統(tǒng)提供的金融服務(wù)。這種商業(yè)模式差別很大。在一些國(guó)家，郵局充當(dāng)支付中心的角色，人們可以接收匯款、支付賬單利用移動(dòng)電話存取款。有一些則成為提供全面服務(wù)的銀行：比如日本郵政就是世界上的銀行之一。在像巴西一類國(guó)家，商業(yè)銀行和郵政成為合作伙伴;在馬拉維，私人銀行能向郵局租借場(chǎng)地。
A World Bank study found last year that postal banks are likelier than conventional ones to provide accounts to those outside the financial mainstream. The bigger the postal network, the greater the ability to reach such people. That may not convince those who would like to see the USPS shrink, but for those who want to preserve it, it could help to justify its scale.
去年世界銀行研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，相對(duì)于傳統(tǒng)銀行，郵政銀行更有可能為主流金融區(qū)域之外的人提供服務(wù)。郵政網(wǎng)絡(luò)越大，接觸到這些人的能力就越大。這也許不足以說(shuō)服那些希望美郵精簡(jiǎn)的人，但對(duì)于那些想要保持它的人來(lái)說(shuō)，這能幫助他們證明美郵規(guī)模的合理性。