Financial Services

The responsibilities of this service consist of:

The organization, operation, improvement and control of the various financial services of Cyprus Post.

The provision to the public of money transferring facilities.

The continuous follow-up, control and implementation of the store requirements program, the maintenance of buildings and the purchasing of new mechanical and other equipment necessary for the smooth functioning of Cyprus Post and the improvement of services offered to the public.

Apart from the traditional postal services, the Postal Services of Cyprus operate a financial service, which is responsible for the issuing and cashing of local and international money orders.

All Post Offices issue and cash Money and Telegraph Orders to and from foreign countries and additionally issue Girocheques, which are valid only for the United Kingdom, Postcheques and British Postal Orders.

Foreign money orders can be exchanged with 24 countries with which bilateral agreements have been concluded.

The payment of Postcheques can be made with 5 European countries with which bilateral agreements have been concluded

To facilitate the exchange of local and foreign remittances to the public, efforts are being made to conclude agreements with the public sector organisations.

The turnover for 2000 amounted to C£ 906.000, showing a decrease of approximately 9.4% from the previous year. This decrease is due mainly to the increase in popularity of electronic banking and other means.

During the year this service managed successfully to meet all the requirements of the Department in mechanical and other equipment, furniture and fittings, motor vehicles, private post office boxes, letter boxes, mail bags, staff uniforms, stationery, e.t.c.

Cyprus Post operates 51 postal outlets. 10 of those are government owned and are valued at C£ 5,3 million excluding value of the land. The rest are leased at an annual cost of C£ 120.000.

During the year a considerable amount was spent on refurbishing and modernising buildings in order to meet customer needs and business requirements.

During the year the mail van fleet totaled 49 vans, 6 less than those of the previous year. These vans are used for the conveyance of mail between towns. They are also used for the collection and delivery of correspondence and parcels between post offices, sorting center stations, ports and airports.

Furthermore, Cyprus Post uses the services of private transport companies, which act as postal contractors for the conveyance of mail between towns, and especially between the rural communities.

Cyprus Post in its effort to improve, modernize and offer a more comfortable and pleasant service to the public has decided to renovate and refurnish all its offices using standardized colours and new modern and uniform furniture and fittings.

As a result of this policy, during 2000 an amount of C£ 56.000 was spent for the renovation and refurnishing of the post offices of Vorios Polos, Dhali, Athienou and Strovolos.

Also the general renovation and refurnishing of the Pedieos Post Office was started and is expected to be completed by April 2001.

Cyprus Post makes every effort to improve, modernize and speed-up the services offered to its customers and for this reason the Financial Services are responsible for following and studying the developments of new technologies in the international postal field.

The most important achievement of Cyprus Postal Services was the acquisition of an automatic letter-sorting machine. This machine is expected to be fully operational by May 2001

Unfortunately, the efforts during 2000 in purchasing additional modern franking, vending, canceling, registering weighing machines and other postal equipment have failed due to various difficulties arising from the tender procedures.

Furthermore, this service has successfully maintained and repaired all the existing machines and other equipment.