Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – PostFinance, the banking arm of the La Poste, the Swiss postal system, is giving deposit account holders 2010 centimes, a little over CHF20, to say thanks for making 2010 a good year.
Profits were up 28 percent, it announced Wednesday 23 February, to CHF575 million. PostFinance acquired 119,000 new customers who set up 198,000 new accounts.
“Despite the difficulties on the financial markets, good interest income was one of the main factors leading to this excellent result, along with cost discipline,” PostFinance noted in its press releasee.
Euro deposit holders will receive 2010 cents if they had interest-earning accounts 31 December 2010.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss Post confirmed to news agency ats that the country’s 2,500 post offices were affected by a system-wide computer breakdown Wednesday morning 27 January. Computers failed to go on at opening time and the problem lasted until nearly 11:00, with some postal stations remaining closed.
Béglé argued Swiss Post International and Finance were key new revenue streams
Update 23:10 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Claude Béglé , chairman of the board of Swiss Post, the Swiss postal system, has resigned following several weeks of political turbulence. He handed in his resignation to the Swiss Federal Council late Tuesday 19 January, effective immediately. Béglé has been under attack from several quarters for his plans to modernize the postal system, especially its expansion abroad, but most recently the attacks have become more personal.
He became chairman of the board in June 2008.
Béglé’s departure brings to four the number of board members to leave in under two months.
Changes at La Poste include supplying new public mailboxes
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss postal service, La Poste, will be keeping only 30 of 114 post offices that were reviewed as part of cost-cutting measures begun in April 2009. A nearly 50 percent decline in mailed letters and packages plus a 17 percent drop in postal payments in less than a decade is behind a major restructuring of services to the public. La Poste’s list includes two post offices in Vaud that will be closed definitively without any replacement, in Buchillon and Chalet-à-Gobet.
Others will be modified with fewer services on offer or will be replaced by home pickup service, a practice widely used in many rural areas. The cutbacks are not finished: La Poste in April identified 421 post offices that will be reviewed by 2011.
At the end of 2009 La Poste has 2,348 post offices and 1,159 pickup services.
Swiss post office closings, changes (complete list)
Links to other sites: La Poste announcement in English, 24 Heures, Le Nouvelliste
CEO Kunz leaves La Poste
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – La Poste chief, Michel Kunz, is leaving after less than eight months on the job. He will be replaced by the current head of Postfinance, Juerg Bucher, La Poste announced late 14 December. The official reason for the separation was “differences of opinion on fundamental matters”.
The Swiss post office has been losing money for years, and revenues were down 16 percent in the first six months of 2009. Kunz had suggested a mailbox fee as a way out, but the idea was quickly and publicly repudiated by the government.
Background: “Post office profits down in first six months“, 28 August 2009, GenevaLunch
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Quickmail SA, based in St Gallen and specialized in mail order deliveries, has been given a license to deliver letters and packages of 50 grams or larger. It is the fourth company to be awarded a license since the privatization process for La Poste began to allow private deliveries for mail under 100 grams, in July 2009. Switzerland now has 24 private companies making deliveries, but most have licenses only for larger deliveries.
Finishing touches 15 minutes before opening, and the customers are lining up!
Etoy, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The once-sleepy farm village of Etoy, midway between Rolle and Morges, is rapidly being transformed into a business centre. The opening Wednesday 16 September of its new shopping complex on the lake road appears to seal the transformation. Several multinational companies are moving into the small but rapidly growing town, but the busy, main transit road’s new shopping area, with a larger post office, Migros, Denner and Sun Store, as well as Interio at the other end of the parking lot, was already putting Etoy on the map by the end of the day, with the parking lot full until closing time. The shops are open slightly longer than most others in the area, a boon to workers on the way home from the office.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal Competition Commission has decided to look more closely at the situation that will be created by a morning newspaper distribution agreement that could leave almost no competition in German-speaking Switzerland and parts of French-speaking Switzerland. The commission concluded after a preliminary review that further study is needed. Tamedia, NZZ and La Poste are seeking to cut costs by joining forces to distribute papers.
In another development linked to the increasingly difficult situation of Swiss media, several hundred journalists took to the streets in Zurich and Bern Tuesday 26 May over editorial staff job cuts announced by Tamedia.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss postal system, La Poste, had first quarter 2009 profits of CHF198 million, down CHF30m or 13 percent from the same period in 2008. The group faces greater competition in July 2009 and falling revenues from letters, down 3.1 percent in the first three months of the year. It says it expects earning for 2009 to be down sharply from 2008.
Bern, Switzerland (Le Nouvelliste, Fre) – The Swiss Federal Council 21 May agreed to bring Switzerland’s postal system in line with the European Union’s plans to privatize its countries’ systems. Parliament will now debate the plan under which La Poste would lose completely its monopoly on delivering mail.
Photo: © La Poste, Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The cost of shipping letters, registered letters and packages outside Switzerland will increase by 7% on 1 April 2009, when La Poste restructures its price schedule. The new prices must still be approved by Mr Price, the government’s consumer watchdog.
