Christchurch to get mobile post office

Press, 8 December 1987, Page 9

Christchurch to get mobile post office

Political reporter Postßank would have five mobile banks in the main centres to service customers affected by the reduction of fixed outlets after February 5, said the bank’s general manager for special projects, Mr Graeme Press, yesterday. One of the mobile banks will have a circuit in Christchurch, and the other four will be in Auckland (two), Wellington, and Dunedin. Precise details of the circuits have not been finalised, but it is likely that the banks will be on the road five days a week from 9 a.m. to about 3.30 p.m. Mr Press suggested most stops would be ser- >

viced twice a week. He was confident that the vehicles being constructed would offer adequate security. Mr Press was one of a number of officials who attended a special meeting of the Parliamentary Communications and Road Safety Select Committee yesterday.

This committee has been dealing with petitions relating to the closing of New Zealand Post and Postßank outlets. Mr Press said Postßank was trying to meet its customers to talk about alternative arrangements for banking. It hoped to persuade them to use other facilities such as cheque accounts, cards, and transfer by telephone.

The Government member of Parliament for Yaldhurst, Mrs Margaret Austin, asked how secure shopkeepers would be if required to keep big sums of cash on hand to cash cheques. The Associate Minister of State Owned Enterprises, Mr Neilson, replied that many stores invariably had big amounts of cash, which they would like to minimise. There was a high acceptance of Government guaranteed cheques — one suggested method of paying benefits.

The Deputy Director of Social Welfare, Mr John Yuill, said the real problem with benefit payments lay in a number of remote rural areas. No

alternative facilities existed to serve beneficiaries who previously used about 150 former outlets. For those beneficiaries who did not remain with Postßank, one possible answer was for them to have agents who could handle their benefits. Mr Yuill said that the use of cheques for benefits on previous occasions had met with a significant level of fraud. He doubted whether this experience would reoccur as only a small number of beneficiaries would be paid by cheque. These would be mainly in rural areas where the identities of people were more widely known, he said.