Postbank could start low-rate lending by 2017
THE government is a step closer to launching its own lending services to consumers after receiving the goahead this week from the Reserve Bank to establish a lending facility through Postbank.
The approval will convert Postbank, which is owned by the Post Office, from a deposit-taking facility that has mainly offered services where banks have a limited presence into an institution providing transactional banking services and short-term loans at interest rates below those charged by commercial banks.
There are still regulatory hurdles to overcome before Postbank can begin lending. The banking licence will be awarded only in 12 months after certain conditions are fulfilled. These include the appointment of a board, the separation of infrastructure assets between the Post Office and Postbank and the registration of Postbank as a company.
On Friday, Telecommunications and Postal Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele said the corporatisation of Postbank did not mean that the government would give up control. It would remain a subsidiary of the Post Office. “We don’t see it being privatised in the future,” he said.
Cwele said Postbank would be critical to the Post Office, which planned to offer financial services and disbursing social grants to the elderly, disabled people and children, and as a channel for the government payment systems.
He said its loan-granting function “will create a lot of circulation of money in the informal and formal economy”.
By the end of the 2015-16 financial year, Postbank held R7.3-billion in deposits.
Cwele said the appointment of a board for Postbank could be done soon because there was a pool of “fit and proper” nominations to choose from.
Cwele, who was speaking after the Post Office’s board meeting on Friday, also said the ailing Post Office had secured R3.7-billion in loans from South African institutions to pay creditors after its debt had reached more than R800-million. The loans were backed by government guarantees made available by Cwele with support from Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
“What we’re happy about is that the DELIVERY: Postal Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele says the Post Office has secured R3.7-billion in loans to pay creditors facility is rand-denominated, so we are not exposed to market volatility,” said Cwele.
This funding will allow the Post Office to implement its corporate plan for 2016-17 through to 2018-19.
In April this year, Post Office CEO Mark Barnes told parliament that the situation was so dire that the institution faced collapse within a month if it did not get funding.
Cwele said the government was not “giving a further cash injection” other than the R650-million announced in the state budget in February.
The Post Office has also made progress in solving labour disputes over wages and the conversion of casual employees to permanent staff that crippled the organisation in 2014, when workers embarked on more than two months of unprotected strikes.
Cwele said the Post Office had signed a three-year agreement on wages and employment conditions with unions and representatives of workers that superseded previous agreements and ended historical labour issues.
Unions and the Post Office had also agreed that bargaining-unit employees would receive one-off taxable and nonpensionable back pay for the eight months between April and November 2014 as part of the three-year wage agreement.
The workers agreed to a salary freeze for the previous financial year. But for this financial year (2016-17) a 6.5% increase would be paid in August.
The board will also introduce a new minimum salary to address disparities in pay for branch managers.