The Korea Post announced on Dec. 18 a plan to overhaul its operation, called the “Basic Plan to Rationalize the Management of Postal Service.”
Under the plan, the post office is out to improve the working conditions for mailmen, hire more postal delivery people and overhaul the entire postal delivery process with the help of professional organizations.
The postal office will boost its mobile financing function to “internet professional bank” level by setting up an integrated financial center, all in a bid to wipe out its annual deficits.
The postal service set out to clean up its finances over the past six years due to the development of the replacement delivery system, including smartphone apps and the more of its corporate customers using electronic notification systems, among others.
The postal service projects a deficit this and next year of around 120 billion won and 180 billion won, respectively, while its toughest problem is an increasing number of its mailmen taking their own lives due to alleged poor working conditions.
The postal service has four major strategies to turn around its operation, including a major overhaul, “smart public finance,” the 4th Industrial Revolution, and boosting its local social contribution activities.
First, the postal service will overhaul its delivery service in cooperation with outside professional firms. From next year, it will set up a central area delivery center in Daejon.
The postal delivery network will also be cut to one delivery area from the existing two to save some 249.3 billion won in costs over the next 30 years.
Manpower for delivery will be increased to cut working hours and give them longer vacations in a bid to improve workers’ quality of life. Two-wheeled delivery vehicles will be replaced with four-wheeled vehicles, while the use of smart postal boxes will be expanded.
Korea Post will also strengthen its connection with Global O2O Marketing to help improve the profit structure and refurbish the old facilities in town centers and also rationalize postal service charges by 2019 and put on lease more postal service windows so that the annual income from those projects would come to around 42 billion won.
Korea Post offers a range of banking services. Its Internet banking service, which is called e-POSTBANK, is directly run by the Korean government and offers secure banking services. It allows users to move money, view their account details and access information services without visiting a post office.
The banking services available include a variety of deposit and savings accounts, as well as bonds. Insurance services are also available including health, traffic, employee, cancer treatment, personal and home insurance products.
People wishing to send valuable items such as bank cheques or important documents can opt to insure the item for an amount they choose.
This service is only available in post offices in which customs officials work. The amount an item can be insured for cannot exceed its cost. The following items can be insured: The postal office also plans to upgrade its mobile financial function of smart finance for public to the level of an internet bank and also develop offline banking from an integrated financial center to be set up later.
The technologies connected with the 4th Industrial Revolution will be infused with the postal service operation all around. AI and IoT and other high-tech will be applied to help its drone delivery service and help strengthen its logistics system construction.
Drone delivery is being test in Kohung, South Jeolla Province and Yongwol, Gangwon Province, while fintech and block chain and other new technologies will be introduced to strengthen the next-generation financial system to be run by the postal service.
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