This weeks financial news featured the Postbank a couple of times. In the beginning of the week FD reported that mother company ING Group was reconsidering its branding strategy. As a part of that exercise, the brand Postbank might be taken off the market. Which would be the end of a nearly 90-year separate branding for the payment services of Postbank (before: 1986 government postal giro payment services). So all the experts each had their own opinion whether this was good or bad.
To the more-insider, the news of course didn't really come as a surprise. Every 5 or 6 years the board level management at ING comes up with the question whether or not to maintain or change the brand strategy. Usually nothing changes. So much ado, perhaps about nothing. Although... one might wonder which is the real Postbank in a more consolidated European payments market. There is a Postbank in Germany as well and some confusion might arise if these two start crossing borders and competing. So in the light of European developments, things may become different this time around.
European developments are also at the heart of tonight's news-item in the NRC. The NRC reports that Postbank will abolish its last debit-cards which were for free. There some 1,56 million of those cards which essentially only had a domestic ATM and POS functionality. But, referring to the SEPA-developments, Postbank informs it customer that they will not support the use of this low-end card as of july 2007. Customers that do wish to continue using this card must choose to upgrade to a full panEuropean debit card (for € 10,95 a year).
Although reactions at the present moment are still scarce, there is bound to be some rumour in the market. Given the image of Postbank as the former postal giro, with a mission to make payment facilities accessible to all people, there may be questions in parliament. Which will undoubtedly link this move of the Postbank to the current perception in public opinion that these European SEPA-developments will make life more expensive. In which case Postbank in turn will undoubtedly refer to European institutions such as European Commission and European Central Bank. The ECB for example recently published its vision and stated that:
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Ideally, citizens should be able to use their cards anywhere in the euro area.
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A SEPA for cards will have the following characteristics:
all technical and contractual provisions, business practices and standards which had formerly resulted in the national segmentation of the euro area have been eliminated.
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Well, of course all ideals come at a price and in my opinion it would be up to the ECB now to step forward and compliment and support Postbank which has had the audacity to act as a first moving issuing bank towards a Single Euro Payments Area for cards. Which is to be preferred above banks merely paying lipservice to the European Ideal and not moving at all...
