SAPO boosts online services

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 06 Feb 2009

The South African Post Office (SAPO) is consolidating its ePostal services into a single portal and is preparing to launch the new offering in April. The electronic portal already has more than 121 000 registered users whom SAPO hopes to leverage in the future.

A SAPO statement says the new ePostal offering is geared to be a one-stop shop for post office services online for government, large enterprises, small businesses and consumers.

ePostal is a combination of various services, such as Hybrid Mail, where the post office digitises physical mail for clients and sends it to the nearest pay point to the receiver. It also provides electronic billing via e-mail, fax or SMS.

"What bills can we deliver and accept in channels that are not on your average list of predefined beneficiaries on Internet banking? That's our target market," says ePostal group executive Cobus Verster.

The statement explains such bills include the renewal of post boxes, vehicle licences and accepting the payment of traffic fines using SAPO's third-party payment solution, among other channels.

Embracing the future

SAPO's ePostal service contributed between R20 million and R30 million to its total pre-tax profit of R565 million last year. The online offering has seen a 60% growth in revenue per annum for the past three to four years.

The post office says its online offering was part of its “corporatisation” strategy for 2008, which seeks to follow new global trends. SAPO CEO Motshoanetsi Lefoka pointed out, during SAPO's results presentation recently, that volumes of physical mail are declining globally, with intelligent mail becoming the new trend.

SAPO says electronic mailing will be combined with traditional mail to provide a value-added service for customers. Verster elaborates that people want to communicate via alternative forms of communication, so future services will be a mix of post boxes, outbound and inbound SMSes and other electronic capabilities in order to access specific services.