Post offices provide bank services for AIB customers

AIB claims the alliance will bring its customers extra choice and more convenience, complementing telephone and online banking, but hanging on to the personal, face-to-face nature of conducting businesses at bank branches.

A new business alliance between An Post and AIB became fully operational earlier this week, with 1,000 automated post offices now providing banking services to AIB customers in the State.

The services, first announced last November, have now been completely rolled out and represent a major increase in the number of outlets at which AIB customers can make basic cash transactions.

The services available at the 1,000 computerised post offices are personal deposits and withdrawals using either an ATM card or a lodgment slip, paying off a credit card bill with cash and making business deposits. There will be no additional cost to AIB customers using the An Post service.

These over-the-counter transactions will be carried out at post offices in the same way as at an AIB branch, using one of the 1,700 personal identity number (PIN) pads installed to link the post offices centrally with AIB.

The bank has 280 branches in the State, so the addition of the automated post office network effectively brings the number of outlets offering banking services for AIB to 1,280.

The AIB deal adds to the list of commercial ventures by An Post, which is seeking to convince consumers that post offices are not just a place to collect social welfare payments or queue to weigh heavy parcels in the run up to Christmas.

The deal could "position An Post in a vibrant manner in the community", according to Mr Declan Byrne, its general manager for business development.

More than 1.7 million people currently transact business at post offices in the State every week, according to An Post, and almost 70 per cent of that business is "non-postal related", says Mr Byrne.

An Post estimates that becoming an agent for AIB will bring an extra three million transactions a year to its network.

The deal is an important extension of services for its rural customers, according to Mr Pete Sayers, an executive in AIB's e-payments business. The bank has made assurances that it will not close any branches in rural areas over the next five years.

Of the services on offer under the scheme, business lodgments are "the big one", Mr Sayers says.

Cash-based businesses in rural areas often have to travel to bigger towns to avail of banking services. In many cases the local post office, if automated, will cut on mileage.

About 70 per cent of Eircom bills are paid through An Post, while more than 3.5 million transactions have been made with ESB since the facility was introduced this year.

The hope is that AIB customers who use post offices to pay Eircom, Bord Gáis, NTL, Chorus or ESB bills, or their television licence, will add one more to their list and pay off their credit card too.

Some large urban areas are also "relatively poorly serviced by bank branches", Mr Byrne adds. An Post has 263 offices in the Dublin area.

Post offices have longer opening hours during the week and open on Saturdays, meaning small businesses can lodge their Friday takings on a Saturday morning instead of keeping on the premises over the weekend."On the personal and business lodgments side of the business, we're increasingly reducing the balance between the amount we have in the office and the amount we need to pay out," says Mr Byrne. This saves on security and transport costs from An Post's cash depots.

The credit card payment and withdrawal and deposit services are the first phase of the alliance between AIB and An Post. The two companies will decide early in the new year whether to introduce a second wave of services.