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Portrait of an exceptional payment expert
Jean-Luc Demierre has withdrawn from
his position at Swiss Post PostFinance,
but continues as Executive Business
Consultant for Eurogiro to support
Eurogiro members in their work to
transform their postal financial service
In the last decade several Eurogiro members
have benefitted from your assistance when
implementing the Eurogiro services. You
have often worked alongside Eurogiro ac-
count managers and IT consultants. Where
do you feel, in particular, that you can make
a difference?
Eurogiro wants to be able to support mem-
bers on an all-round scale. Eurogiro account
managers are the members’ daily contact with
Eurogiro and assist with many situations, whilst
the IT consultants support the implementation
and smooth running of the Eurogiro installa-
tion. My role is to assist in setting up operation-
al and business procedures within the member
organisations so that each member derives
maximum benefit from their Eurogiro member-
ship. I am typically involved where member or-
ganisations undergo a transition from a paper-
based payment processing, often with monthly
settlement. There are many advantages in
store for these members when they build on
the experience from other members. Because
I have advised many postal organisations, I
may come up with ideas for more efficient, yet
do-able, ways to do things.
Are there common traits of the organisations
which benefit most from asking your advice?
In these organisations, the cross-border finan-
cial services are organised in the same way,
because they are strongly influenced by the
international postal regulations of the UPU.
The purpose of getting mail organisations to
adhere to Eurogiro is not only to improve the
handling of the international postal money or-
der, but also to take advantage of the multiple
features of Eurogiro. It is often necessary to
re-think the organisation of these services and
to propose new models to the management.
A good example is Albanian Post. At the
beginning of the ‘90s, I created in this country,
in close co-operation with the local staff, the
cross-border money orders system based on
the UPU regulation. Ten years later, it became
necessary to modernise the system to remain
competitive. Albanian Post became a Eurogiro
member and chose to use the euro settlement
services provided by Deutsche Postbank.
What are the main challenges of the postal
organisations today?
To compensate for the loss of business in the
field of the mail services, the postal organisa-
tions have to invest in the development and
in the modernisation of the postal financial
services. In particular, they have to build the
bridges allowing them to maintain a dialogue
with the banking world. During the last decade,
the typical postal payment products came
under strong competition from simple and
successful products offered by a variety of
competitors.
Eurogiro is providing a set of products and
services which allow the postal organisations
to propose and to handle postal payment
products, as well as banking products.
Are there risks that the postal organisations
should particularly be aware of?
In the world of payments traffic, both the needs
and the behaviour of customers are chang-
ing as rapidly as new technologies and
services are introduced.
The biggest risk for the postal organisations
is not to react quickly enough and risk losing
their customers.
Being a member in a community with both
postal organisations and other payment
specialists such as Eurogiro could provide
inspiration, new services and support to
postal organisations to be competitive. After
all, the posts hold an exceptional asset in
their unique postal network that reaches out
to all citizens.
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4 Eurogiro News
Jean-Luc Demierre has facilitated the modernisation of postal financial services in an exceptional
way. He has played a central role in forming UPU agreements and Eurogiro services alike, he has
supported postal organisations in leaving behind paper-based processing and he has assisted
implementation with Eurogiro members. No man knows the challenges of the postal organisations
better than him
Jean-Luc Demierre is well known both in Eurogiro and in UPU –
a rare position in any measure. Jean-Luc Demierre:
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Specialist in cross border payment services by Swiss Post PostFinance from
1982 to 2011
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Delegate of Swiss Post Postfinance to the UPU during 25 years
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Chairman of several working groups by UPU
>
Member of several working groups which formulated and developed Eurogiro
products and services from 1995 to 2010
>
Adviser for the implementation of Eurogiro in Albania, Croatia, Greece, Hungary,
Latvia, Turkey, Madagascar, Senegal, Togo, Tunisia and Vietnam