A. Go to the post office, send a package, pick up some stamps and deposit your paycheckor pay a bill? That's the newest idea for rescuing the cash-strapped ( 资金紧缺的 )United States Postal Service (USPS) floated in a report published by the USPS Officeof Inspector General (OIG).
B."One in four U.S. households lives at least partially outside the financialmainstream," it says. The FDIC ( 联邦储蓄保险公司) puts the number of entirelyunbanked Americans at about 8%. Exclusion from the financial mainstream isn'tcheap: "The average underserved household spends $2,412 each year just on interestand fees for alternative financial services," the OIG says. It estimates it couldturn aprofit by offering basic services like check-cashing, bill pay, small-dollar loansandthe like at a fraction of the prices charged by fringe providers.
C. The report points out that more than 90% of bank branches closed since 2008 arein lower-income towns and neighborhoods. Post offices, on the other hand, are inboth rich and poor areas. The plan has already drawn early praise from some on thepolitical left. On its website, the Center for American Progress, hails the idea, sayingit "could spare the most economically vulnerable Americans from dealing withpredatory ( 贪婪的，掠夺的 ) financial companies."
D."If the Postal Service offered basic banking services--nothing fancy, just basicbill paying, check cashing and small dollar loans--then it could provide affordablefinancial services for underserved families, and, at the same time, shore up ( 支持，支撑) its own financial status," Senator Elizabeth Warren argues. "USPS could partnerwith banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don't havebasic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in theirneighborhoods."
E."Banks don't want these customers; if they did, they would actually make a play fortheir business," an article in the New Republic argues, "Instead of partnering withpredatory lenders, banks could partner with the USPS on a public option, not beholden ( 欠人情的) to shareholder demands, which would treat customers more fairly."
It's this "partnering with banks" thing where the details get tricky. Although the OIGreport says it's not out to replace banks, banks--perhaps not surprisingly——on't feetquite the same way. Banks might not be raking in money in poor neighborhoods, butthat doesn't mean they're happy about the Post Office filling in the gaps.
F. A representative of the American Bankers Association tells the Washington Post,"We're deeply concerned that the U.S. Postal Service is trying to drive the creationof a new government-sponsored entity engaged in banking services, which is notsubject to the same level of regulation. This new entity could be viewed by many as agovernment-endorsed provider of financial products," he says.
G. Bloomberg Businessweek points out that plenty of non-banks, including Wal-Martand T-Mobile, offer bank-like services via prepaid debit cards (预付借记卡 ), andit suggests that the future of banking services, especially at the lower end of theincome spectrum, increasingly lies with businesses (or entities) that aren't banksthemselves. "I perceive banks as becoming increasingly good at commercial bankingand increasingly bad at retail banking," Arjan Schutte, founder of Core InnovationCapital, tells the publication. "Just from an economic perspective, there are betterplaces than banks."
 H. To experts who study the postal service, there are some questions: Can the postoffice really make money from this? And--should it? How should it balance revenuegeneration with some sort of civic duty?
I.For starters, if serving low-income Americans with fmancial services is such a goodway to make money, why aren't banks already doing it? It's a good question, and
there are a couple of (related) reasons: Banking regulations require that when a banksets up shop, it can't just take residents' money for deposit and not also offer lendingservices (like, say, mortgages). Some banks, especially after the subprime crisis andreal estate bubble bursting, are reluctant to lend under these conditions, so they stayout of these areas entirely.
J.The Post Office, on the other hand, has a huge, well-known network of facilities,already established, staffed and paid for. "It could be that the Postal Service hasa bigger retail network than the banks and could make use of that," says JamesCampbell, a consultant on postal policy. "It doesn't sound crazy, but it doesn't soundlike a big moneymaker, either."
K. Campbell is also skeptical of the plan because it doesn't address the post office'sbiggest problem: a sharp decline in first-class mail ( 第一类邮件 ) volume. But thePost Service has been tackling that slump in other ways, argues Mark T. Williams,a former bank examiner for the Federal Reserve who teaches banking at Boston
University, who compares the banking plan to other recent private-sector initiatives
the Post Office has undertaken, like its partnership with Amazon.com. "This is a
really entrepreneurial and aggressive thing they're doing," he says.
L.He points out (as the OIG does in its report) that a number of other countries offerfinancial services through their postal agencies and make money doing so. "I thinkthis is a good time for them to continue to recreate who they are," Williams says. "Theyhave great locations to serve this population. I think this would be a very positive stepfor them."
M. Success might not come without cost or risk, though. Given that the Postal Office isstill losing billions of dollars, Rick Geddes, an associate professor of policy analysisand management at Cornell University, thinks this is a risky time to set off in a newdirection. "Would this be an additional drain or could the Postal Service do this ina way that would make it profitable?" he says. "I'm often supportive of the PostalService innovating and trying new products and services that are in its areas ofexpertise," he says. "I would have a real question about where is the core expertise todo bill paying and check cashing."
N.In fact, even defining success in this case could prove tricky. "What exactly is thegoal?" Geddes says. "Is the goal to make the Postal Service more efficient, more likea utility, more profitable, or is the goal to address this fundamental problem of poorcommunities not having adequate banking?"
O.From the OIG report, it's clear that the Postal Service thinks the answer is onethat melds both profitability and public service. Although it preaches the revenue-generating possibilities of financial services offered by other countries' postalagencies, it argues that the benefits of entering the market would be social as wellas financial. Williams thinks the two goals aren't mutually exclusive. "I'd arguethe USPS would bring competition to these folks that have been able to prey on theunderserved, so that's a real positive," he says.