Post Office branches are set to become more commercial and offer further financial products and services in sweeping changes, it was revealed this week.

Post Office branches will sell a comprehensive range of financial services as part of a sweeping commercialisation of the UK’s network of branches, Allan Leighton, chairman of Royal Mail revealed today (Tuesday) at the National Federation of Sub-postmasters conference in Scarborough. The first, an unsecured personal loan, will go on sale from October with a national roll out targeted for January/February 2004.

Mr Leighton said: “Post Office reinvention is now truly underway, and David Mills, the Chief Executive, and I want it to be based on the entrepreneurial skills of our sub-postmasters backed by new products, new incentives and new advertising.”

“We are determined to put our Post Office branches on a better financial footing, by giving customers the products they want and letting sub-postmasters get on with the job of running their branches to suit their customers.”

“Post Office branches will offer additional financial services in the way that supermarkets currently do, but they will be more accessible, offered with a more personal touch and backed with a real community brand.”

Loans, credit cards and insurance

Leighton revealed that, in addition to personal loans, over the next eighteen months customers will be able to take out a Post Office credit card, savings account and get motor and life insurance. These financial products will add to the already highly successful sales of foreign currency, travellers’ cheques and travel insurance.

Three hundred more Post Office branches will sell euros and US dollars on demand from July, and an additional 1,000 branches will be selling MoneyGrams from later this month. There will also be a trial giving pay-as-you-go internet access with easyInternetcafe in the next two months. A TV, radio and newspaper advertising campaign starting on Boxing Day will promote these new products.

Sunday trading

Post Offices are also set to branch out into Sunday opening, under the new measures. Branches will have the choice of offering flexible opening times, which could involve opening into the evening and on Sundays.

Final closing time for some branches

But among the fanfare it was announced that the urban closure and investment programme will be brought forward by a year to end in December 2004, and changes will be carried out on an area-by-area basis rather than on the current branch-by-branch basis. The plan is still to close around 3,000 of the 9,000 urban branches – 257 branches were closed between January and the end of May – but to do it faster to reduce the uncertainty facing sub-postmasters so that they can concentrate on building sustainable businesses.

Mr Leighton reaffirmed David Mills’ promise to customers that 95 per cent of those living in urban areas will still have a Post Office branch within a mile of their home after December 2004, and that local people’s views will continue to be taken into account before closing any branches.

Mr Leighton said: “We recognise the huge upheaval the closures mean to our customers, and are heartened by how much they care about their local branches.”

“However, these closures are unavoidable because too many branches are struggling to survive due to a lack of business, which isn’t good for our customers or sub-postmasters.”