The Postal Service is telling its regulator it has no plans but to drag the plug on a postal banking pilot, regardless of a scarcity of shoppers and opposition from Home Republicans.
USPS advised the Postal Regulatory Commission in a recent filing that it’ll proceed the postal banking pilot “in its present kind” previous March 2022.
“No ultimate determinations have been reached with regard to ending the pilot, or with regard to some other potential steps that is perhaps taken to change the pilot,” USPS attorneys wrote.
USPS spokeswoman Tatiana Roy stated Wednesday that the company didn’t have any further updates on the pilot past its submitting to the PRC.
USPS advised the commission in January that six prospects had taken benefit of the check-cashing pilot it launched final September, and that the company made simply over $35 in income.
The fee is directing USPS to offer discover when it terminates this system.
USPS quietly launched the pilot program on Sept. 13, which permits prospects to money payroll and enterprise checks within the type of present playing cards.
For a flat payment of $5.95, prospects should purchase a single-use present card of as much as $500, utilizing enterprise or payroll checks as fee. USPS received’t settle for checks bigger than $500, and received’t disburse money for any checks.
4 put up workplace areas are at present collaborating within the pilot in Washington; Baltimore; Falls Church, Virginia and the Bronx, New York.
The company already gives some fundamental monetary providers, together with cash orders, digital funds transfers and cashing checks issued by the Treasury Division, however would want laws to tackle extra sturdy providers at its more than 34,000 retail locations.
The Congressional Research Service discovered USPS supplied some monetary merchandise within the twentieth century, however they haven’t been out there because the company terminated the Postal Financial savings System in 1967.
Whereas progressive Democrats have launched laws lately that might broaden banking providers at USPS, Home and Senate Republicans have dismissed these proposals, saying they transcend the company’s core mission of delivering mail and packages.
High Republicans on the Home Oversight and Monetary Companies Committees, in a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Wednesday, expressed frustration with USPS for prolonging an “unsuccessful” pilot program.
Home Oversight and Reform Committee Rating James Comer (R-Ky.), Home Monetary Companies Committee Rating Member Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Shopper Safety and Monetary Establishments Subcommittee Rating Member Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.)
Lawmakers stated the pilot violated authorized restrictions on USPS providing or creating new merchandise outdoors the scope of its conventional postal providers, and that USPS launched this system with out approval from Congress or the PRC.
“This system violated long-standing prohibitions that stop USPS from providing or creating new non-postal merchandise, and over the course of 4 months, it proved extraordinarily unpopular. It’s due to this fact unclear why, and on what foundation, this system has been prolonged,” they wrote.
The lawmakers additionally pointed to the pilot’s lack of shoppers as proof that this system “was not designed in response to buyer demand.”
“The failure of the pilot program demonstrates that customers should not all for banking with the federal authorities, together with USPS,” the lawmakers wrote.
President Joe Biden lately signed into legislation the Postal Service Reform Act, which specifies postal providers to incorporate “the supply of letters, printed matter, or mailable packages, together with acceptance, assortment, sorting, transportation or different features ancillary thereto.”
The lawmakers advised DeJoy this definition of postal providers within the laws “exists to make sure USPS focuses on its distinctive position and doesn’t give attention to novel non-postal services that might restrict non-public market growth, together with the marketplace for monetary providers.”
PRC Chairman Michael Kubayanda, in a March 9 letter to Home Republicans, stated the fee has been “actively engaged” with USPS in offering oversight and offering particulars concerning the pilot program.
