Economy
Why Cleveland Wants to Bring Back Postal Banking
An idea from the early 20th century is ripe for revival in urban “banking deserts,” say advocates like the U.S. postal worker union.
In the United States, the post office is for mailing letters, and the bank is for cashing checks.
That’s not the case in France, Italy, Japan, China, Brazil, India, and New Zealand, all of which offer financial services like money transfers through their post offices. And it wasn’t always true in the U.S.: For half a century, the the U.S. Postal Service offered a Postal Savings System, which at one point held 10 percent of the entire commercial banking system’s asset stash.