Correos will assume the role of banking in small towns to win business

Correos will assume the role of banking in small towns to win business

It also wants to become an administrative office for different types of management, from renewing the license to obtaining hunting and fishing licenses

  Correos seems to have found in a return to its origins the formula to combat the growing competition of other private postal operators -between Seur and MRW already control 30% of the logistics management of shipments, compared to almost 43% maintained by the company public- like the giant of electronic commerce, Amazon, which has set up its own distribution network. To do so, it will once again provide financial intermediation services as it had been doing only three years ago, when the German entity Deutsche Bank ended the joint agreement that had led it to have a bank manager in its offices and even offer fixed-term deposits to a bank. relatively attractive interest rate.

  But Correos was not a bank then nor will it be now, although it does take it in some way in their genes. In 1909 Caja Postal was born -although it did not start operating until seven years later-, then the only national savings entity, and it was in operation until 1991 when it joined together with other public banks in the Argentaria corporation. After the privatization of the company and its integration into BBVA, the company once again offered financial services in its offices through Bancorreos in a public tender that was awarded to Deutsche Bank.

Now that path is retaken but you do not want to depend on a single entity, at the same time that you will not ask for a banking license either . Correos, basically, wants to be on one side the entrance door to several banks and, on the other, its substitute in the smaller towns. Since 2008, with the beginning of the last major financial and economic crisis, almost 18,000 deposit entities offices have been closed in Spain, leaving many towns without branches. And it is in them, taking advantage of the fact that the postal company is already present with 2,396 locations, where it wants to assume that role as it was decades ago .

"While the bank is withdrawing its capacity, in Correos it happens the other way around and seeks to expand services," explained on Tuesday the president of the public company (integrated in the SEPI), Juan Manuel Serrano . To this end, it will not only act as a third-party bank branch (for example, it will open accounts and deposits in its name, it will even allow withdrawals and deliveries of cash), going beyond the agreements it has in place with Evo Bank, Triodos Bank and Mediolanum, but also will serve as offices of public administrations to perform different types of procedures -in 2018 passed through its postal units 93.5 million people- how to renew the DNI, get hunting and fishing licenses, negotiations with the Treasury, etc. And this while maintaining its current operability of ticket sales for shows and other products such as prepaid phone cards, mobile phones, headphones ... "We can take on everything," insisted its chief executive.

Looking outside

But Correos also wants to consolidate itself as a reference operator in parcels, where it already manages almost half (49%) of the shipments generated through online purchases. For that, his strategy is to increase his dominance in the Iberian Peninsula -where he intends to cover any transfer in less than 24 hours-, including Portugal, and to reach the beginning of many of these products, that is, Southeast Asia, one of the "main points of origin" of all types of remittances worldwide and "with a growing volume," Serrano said. China, Japan and Cambodia are, a priori, the countries that would be most interested in this enlargement.

The details of how entering these markets will be addressed in a newly created international business commission. Already returning to the national level, the company will launch this year the so-called 'Project Rampa 7' : a logistics center to be more efficient in the management of goods at Madrid's Barajas airport, where you can process 10,000 packages per hour.

In addition, they will maintain the provision of the universal postal service, for which this year they will receive 150 million euros from the State, 15% more than in 2018 although they will not even represent one in ten euros that they enter: in particular, 7.6% of the 1,966 million expected to bill this year (10% more) and with which it expects to reduce its red numbers by almost 96% to leave them at only 7.4 million.