The Management of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) has reiterated its commitment to continue to provide effective and reliable Postal services to its esteemed customers in accordance with its operational statutory mandate.
According to the General Manager, Corporate Communication, Franklin Alao, this has become imperative in order to bridge the divergent needs of the modern customer.
Alao in a statement on Thursday, noted that the notion that the organization is abdicating its core mandate to operate microfinance bank as alleged in some quarters is misleading.
He clarified that the Microfinance bank being contemplated is an initiative of the CBN itself in collaboration with the Bankers Committee and the Nigerian Incentive Risk System and Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL).
According to him, “The Microfinance bank is not going to be managed by NIPOST or owners institutions and or involved in its day to day management, but by independent management which has no direct relations with NIPOSTs operations.
“The use of NIPOST outlets for the take of the NIRSAL Microfinance Banks is an initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria, in collaboration with the Bankers Committee and NIPOST.
“The objective of the collaboration is to bridge the intervention gap which conventional banks have failed to fill despite the huge sums of money channeled through them.
“NIPOST is therefore not floating a bank nor abdicating its core mandate. The microfinance banks created through this collaboration will be accommodated in the Post offices providing services to the people while NIPOST render its own postal business”.
He further noted that the Federal government led by President Muhammadu Buhari should be commended for recognizing that NIPOST is one of the government institutions that is closer to the people and that using postal outlets will serve its intervention to support the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), contribute to poverty alleviation and reduce unemployment.
“It is noteworthy that rather than abdicating its responsibilities, NIPOST is leveraging on ICT to introduce innovative and game changing services tailored to needs of its customers in line with international best practices which are also in tandem with Universal Postal Union guidelines.
“These services include Agency banking, e-commerce, Digital Addressing System (DAS) and Address Verifications System (VAS), which are real time address location solutions in Nigeria.
“Talking about core business of NIPOST, It should be noted that apart from mail and parcel, financial service has also been a core mandate of NIPOST right from its inception.
“It would be recalled that the postal order and money order used to be the only means of remitting money before the emergence of modern technology which now make things even much easier through electronic means.
“It is in recognition of this and the fact that post offices can be used to deepen financial inclusion that the CBN granted NIPOST a Super Agency License in order to be able to make banking and other modern financial services available in every post office, especially in areas where there are no banks, and this happens to be the rural areas where 70% of post offices are located”, the statement ended.
