Page 5 - Eurogiro News May2011_web version

Warsaw, 10-12 May 2011 – Eurogiro Community Meeting

More than 100 participants from 40+ countries met to discuss mutual business and learn from each other. Many of the delegates were in Warsaw for the frst time and enjoyed the Polish capital with its moving history and many green parks

“The power of Posts is immense”

These words by Eurogiro Board member, Paul Camp from Deutsche Bank, summed up the perceptions from the opening session. The meeting began with a panel of Eurogiro Board members from Posts as well as banks, who all underlined the importance of Eurogiro continuing to be a bridge between the postal and banking sector. The banks were attracted to the opportunities for expansion in the area of cross border remittances, and were often expected by regulators to provide remittance services. However, their natural focus had long been on account holders in cities, while rural outlets or non-banked citizens were rare customers. During the fnancial crisis, remittances had seen stable and high growth, in contrast to other business lines, just as the number of remittent workers had continued to grow. Posts, on their side, had the outlets, the capability to handle cash payments, and had established a level of trust from being public entities. But they could beneft from cooperating with banks with effcient settlement and foreign exchange offerings.

The Eurogiro service portfolio should continue to bring effciencies to its members. As Mario Daberkow, Eurogiro Board member from Deutsche Postbank put it: “Eurogiro should reduce complexity for its members in a world where complexity is growing.” At the closing session, Kai Schmitz from the World Bank presented a wealth of fgures and trends within the global remittance market. His key message was that countries would beneft from fnancial institutions capturing cross border remittances from the informal channels. A much larger portion of the funds would be spent on local consumption but also, if banks were involved, on funding further trade and local development. Posts could take a central role in this. Posts were often seen as trustworthy, less proft-driven and as welcoming any citizen. They could be instrumental in bringing bank services to the un-banked. The challenge was to offer competitive products, including accounts and simple loans and insurances. The World Bank was also targeting its efforts at regulators to help make way for a broader product portfolio within Posts.

Eurogiro News 5

Eurogiro – UPU connection agreement

Søren Rose, Deputy CEO of Eurogiro, explained how the UPU and Eurogiro had built a foundation for the future exchange of transactions between the two organisations. The intention was to enable Postal Ope-rators, who had been approved as such by the local government, to exchange postal fnancial transactions between the two net-works. A few issues still had to be resolved before the frst transaction would cross the bridge, but Posts on both Eurogiro and UPU side had already volunteered to pilot the link.

Organisations participating in the Eurogiro Community Meeting for the frst time:

Members:

> Ukrainian State Enterprise of Posts > Trans-Fast, US

Guests:

> Vatican Post > Bank Pocztowy, PL

d 8