This study discusses the landscape of postal networks in the Europe and Central Asian Region, and the current role of postal networks in providing access to financial services. The landscape is intended to serve as a basis to assess the potential role in expanding access to financial services. Postal reform strategies need to address the position of the postal networks, their economic viability, ownership, and management. A key challenge will be to acknowledge that the postal retail networks are payments or financial networks, and not just traditional mail processing outlets, and that their future lies in developing as the front-end of financial services and information services that also handle mail.
