UPU’s successful postal payment service galvanized by regional approach

01.03.2019 - Throughout its 145-year history, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) has offered unique global services to postal operators, but one service is gaining traction thanks to a timely regional approach. Now registered in 110 countries, the UPU’s collective trademark for electronic postal payment service, PosTransfer, is flourishing.

Registered as a trademark at the end of 2014, with the goal of fostering development and establishing a trusted brand for postal payment services, PosTransfer is a competitive and reliable brand enabling customers to remit money. The system is a central feature of UPU’s desire to build a global postal payment network.  

Discussing PosTransfer’s brand and credibility, Coordinator of the UPU’s Postal Financial Services Programme Sergey Dukelskiy says the brand has a bright future. He points to the ability of countries to adopt an enticing corporate design, strong guidance rules and high-quality standards to enhance the service provided to customers.

“Once deployed by the operator, the technology behind the PosTransfer brand offers a highly innovative money transfer service to all its customers, as well as a favourable pricing mechanism,” notes Dukelskiy. He adds that adoption of PosTransfer will facilitate the creation of multilateral agreements, while opening up additional corridors with other operators who use the trademark.

The UPU Coordinator is keen to highlight another outcome of adopting the PosTransfer brand. Although the brand is global in nature, he says that, if postal operators wish to increase transaction volumes, a regional strategy is often the best approach. This strategy reflects an awareness that migration, the driving force behind PosTransfer, is often intra-regional. 

To make the most of the regional approach, Posts should adopt the brand together, as well as undertake joint promotional campaigns. “Linking countries within the region makes sound strategic sense not only from a linguistic, economic and trading perspective, but also from the point of view of all those wishing to send remittances back to their home countries," says Dukelskiy.  

Examples of this regional approach include countries from the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe who, two years ago, began setting up the architecture for the implementation of the PosTransfer trademark. The pioneers included Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, The Russian Federation and Ukraine. Others are soon to follow, including in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as the francophone countries.

Postal operators are linked to an interconnection platform that is a central hub for the UPU’s International Financial System—IFS—a software application for international money order services. The interconnection platform offers a real-time transaction service, centralized management system, bilateral and multilateral agreements and a repository for payments.  

“PosTransfer is about postal operators leveraging their business connections, creating lasting relationships and delivering a top quality service to their customers. I’m proud to be part of the UPU team responsible for delivering this service to the world, one country at a time”, adds Dukelskiy.