Same thing happened to the French postal service in 2006, with high hopes for "a bank with the ethics of public service", but it quickly became exactly like any other bank: profit, profit, profit.
Completely disagree with nmc. They offer only basic (useful) services, don't touch investment banking at all, and in terms of success already contribute to a fair share of La Poste's overall revenues. Which doesn't mean they don't have room for improvement, to the contrary.
To me, pegging a bank to postal services is a no brainer given synergies etc.
> They [...] don't touch investment banking at all
Disagree all you want, but please get your facts right. Yes, La Banque Postale is technically forbidden from directly speculating on the open market. However:
- they can buy and own banks which are, in turn, allowed to speculate (cf. the Dexia bailout)
- they offer revolving credits at extremely high rates (more than 15%), which is known to push people further into poverty
- they can speculate on markets like the covered bond market (and actually need to, because the deposits are currently not enough to provide all services)
- they can speculate on side-effects (eg shift by one day the payment date for social benefits)
(This list is not exhaustive. If you are too clumsy to find references by yourself, just ask, I will add some.)
No investment banking? Good bank! Modern "investment banking" is just playing around with numbers, nothing which provides real value to the world economies.
Well, current postal services revenues (and outlook) mean that anyway you'd have to fire the 4th person eventually given high cost base etc. There's not enough work nor revenues for 4 people.
So diversifying is actually a good thing...
