Moneyweb (Johannesburg)
Steven Jardim
21 October 2003
Johannesburg — Britain's leading banks are sending letters to South African clients saying that in future any documentation -- including statements, credits cards, pin numbers or cheque books -- will not be sent through the normal postal channels, but through private couriers.
In one instance where the evidence was presented to Moneyweb, the institution, says in a letter to a local client expecting to receive a new ATM card: 'the bank has experienced an unacceptable level of correspondence destined for your country being lost or stolen.'
This particular financial institution has arranged, according to the letter, to send the card via a well known internationally based courier service for an extra charge of £30 (+/-R360). The client, who will remain anonymous, said that he is willing to pay the fee but feels saddened that foreigners no longer trust the South African Post Office (SAPO) to deliver international correspondence due to theft and, even worse, inefficiency.
Moneyweb contacted the financial institution in London and asked a press relations officer about the letter in question. She said: "Unfortunately we have been forced to go down this line and we have noticed that our clients in South Africa are pleased about the precaution we take - especially our more elderly clients who do not use the Internet to do their banking online." She refused to divulge the percentage of South African clients who now receive correspondence by private courier, but did say: "South Africa has been on a list of countries where postal services are now deemed dangerous, inefficient or non-existent."
And that list is used by all of Britain's major banks and insurers. None of them trusts SAPO, lumping it with the postal services of many dodgy countries.
This comes after the Department of Communications, the government ministry that controls SAPO, said that the Postal Services Amendment Bill would go ahead to the National Council of Provinces on 22 October 2002. The bill passed the National Assembly in September, where after it went to select committee stage.
It was about three weeks ago that private operators in the courier service industry realised that the amendment would debar delivery of packages or mail weighing 1kg or less - by anyone except for state-owned SAPO.
The previous legislation initially outlawed any private delivery of said packages and mail weighing 2 kg and less, although the Post Office or the Postal Regulator never enforced this rule in the past.
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