Post Office's Brilliant Strategy For Solvency -- Become a Bank

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People like to complain about banks popping up like Starbucks on every corner these days. But in poor neighborhoods, the phenomenon is quite the opposite: Over the past couple of decades, the banks have pulled out.
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But a possible solution has appeared, in the unlikely guise of the United States Postal Service. The unwieldy institution, which has essentially been self-funded since 1971, and has maxed out its $15 billion line of credit from the federal government, is in financial straits itself. But what it does have is infrastructure, with a post office in most ZIP codes, and a relationship with residents in every kind of neighborhood, from richest to poorest.

Last week, the office of the U.S.P.S. inspector general released a white paper noting the “huge market” represented by the population that is underserved by traditional banks, and proposing that the post office get into the business of providing financial services to “those whose needs are not being met.” (I wrote a paper years ago suggesting just such an idea.) Postal banking has a powerful advocate in Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has publicly supported the plan.
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There is, of course, a certain irony in the post office, cash-strapped and maxed out on credit, looking to elbow in on the business of check-cashing and payday-loan storefronts. And while the U.S.P.S. white paper stresses that its own offerings, rates and fees would be “more affordable,” a note of alarm is raised when it highlights the potential bonanza that providing financial services to the financially underserved could yield, stating that the result could be “major new revenue for the Postal Service” estimated at $8.9 billion a year. It’s a plan that could indeed save the post office, which last year recorded a $1 billion operating loss.

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