Page 292 - The Digital Financial Services (DFS) Ecosystem

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Ecosystem

partnered with the Post, leveraging its rural infrastructure while simultaneously closing shop in small
rural areas. From mid-2015 to March 2016, the three biggest bank in Australia have reportedly closed
227 locations in rural areas, most of them being replaced by a Bank@Post agreement. 6
• In the UK, financial services represent 30% of the revenues of the Post Office Ltd, the company which
operates the 11,634-branches postal network. The company has set up a partnership with Bank of
Ireland UK to offer postal-branded current and savings accounts to 3 million clients. In addition, the Post
Office has signed agreements with all major banks in the UK whereby banks’ clients can perform basic
operations, including deposits and withdrawals, in all post offices. 95% of all UK current accounts can
now be accessed at Post Office branches. Here again this is an illustration of a trend that can be observed
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in many high-income countries of banks focusing on major urban areas and relying on partners such as
the post to maintain a presence in rural areas.
Partnership model with one or various MNOs or FinTechs:

In these models, there is a real partnership between the MNO/FinTech on one side and the Post on the other.
The partners share the responsibilities (and the revenues), based on their respective strengths and competitive
advantages. This can be visualized as follows:

Figure 4 – Areas of responsibility

Tunisia Post is the best example of BM3 with an MNO, as the Post has concluded partnerships with the three
MNOs in the country (Tunisie Télécom, Ooredoo and Orange). In Tunisia, MNOs are not allowed to offer mobile
financial products on their own and therefore need to have a financial institution as a partner. Tunisia Post,
which is not a bank per se, is nevertheless the largest financial institution in the country, which explains why
all three MNOs decided to select them as a partner.

Compared to the cash merchant model, the Post has more control over product design, operations, and of
course revenues. However, the choice of the partner is a fundamental factor of success, as illustrated by the
following table:

6 Dale Webster, March 2016, “Bank bush Bash”, The Weekly Times
7 Post Office Limited Annual Report 2014-2015

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