Post Office to offer personal loans

The Post Office will offer its customers unsecured personal loans in a joint venture with the Bank of Ireland, it has emerged today.

The Post Office will offer financial services products through its 16,500 branches – one of the largest retail networks in Europe. Following on from its launch into travel services, this further expansion is designed to transform the Post Office into a major player in the financial services market, the company said.

Bank of Ireland, which in the UK operates mainly through Bristol & West plc as well as its own brand branch network, will invest £125 million in to the venture over the next 10 years to provide core infrastructure and start-up costs. The venture is equally owned by the Post Office Ltd and Bank of Ireland with profits split evenly between the two.

By offering financial services through its UK-wide network of branches – some 5,000 more outlets than all of the other banks and building societies combined – the Post Office believes that the move will prove competitive and offer more choice to customers.

Customers can borrow from £1,000-£25,000 and the rate depends solely on the loan amount, rather than the credit rating of the applicant, The rates, which are the same across the internet and telephone, range from 14.9% for £1,000 to 7.9% for £15,000 borrowed.

The Post Office said that the launch comes at a time when major high street banks have been "losing their share" of the personal loans market and now account for just around 40% of all new loans taken out – compared to 60% market share of loan stock, the company said.

The Post Office is taking its lead from Europe where financial services have been available from post offices for a number of years – and is worth billions of euro a year in revenues.

Deutsche Postbank, which was set up 10 years ago in Germany recently announced profits of 500 million euro and plans to float 49% of the business for an estimated 2.5 billion euro.

La Poste in France generates 3 billion euro in revenues from financial services each year and Bancoposta in Italy currently derives over a third of its revenue from financial services and has 15% of the country’s current account balances.

David Mills, Chief Executive, Post Office Ltd, said: “Extensive research carried out amongst 20,000 customers clearly indicated a huge demand for financial services from a brand like the Post Office. We have many distinct advantages over our competitors: we have the largest branch network of any retailer with 29 million customers visiting us each week, and we already handle 27 pence of every pound in circulation in the UK. Perhaps more importantly, we are trusted by our customers who appreciate our commitment to providing straightforward, good value products and services.”

Patrick Waldron, CEO of the joint venture and former Director of Retail Strategy at Bank of Ireland, said that early pilots had been "encouraging".

He added: “Research shows that of those who have taken loans to date, 78% felt that it was ‘very good to see the Post Office offering financial services’. We believe that the partnership between the two companies will develop into a major player in the UK financial services market over the next few years.”

(gmcg)