A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional services, which vary by country. These include providing and accepting government forms, and processing government services and fees. The chief administrator of a post office is called a postmaster.
Indian postal systems for efficient military and governmental communications had developed long before the arrival of Europeans. When the Portuguese, Dutch, French, Danish and British conquered the Marathas who had already defeated the Mughals, their postal systems existed alongside those of many somewhat independent states. The British East India Company gradually annexed the other powers on the sub-continent and brought into existence a British administrative system over most of modern-day India, with a need to establish and maintain both official and commercial mail systems.
The Brunei dollar, has been the currency of the Sultanate of Brunei since 1967. It is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively B$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. It is divided into 100 sen (Malay) or cents (English). The Brunei dollar is issued by the Brunei Darussalam Central Bank.
A money order is a directive to pay a pre-specified amount of money from prepaid funds, making it a more trusted method of payment than a cheque.
India Post is a government-operated postal system in India, part of the Department of Post under the Ministry of Communications. Generally known as the Post Office, it is the most widely distributed postal system in the world. Warren Hastings had taken initiative under East India Company to start the Postal Service in the country in 1766. It was initially established under the name "Company Mail". It was later modified into a service under the Crown in 1854 by Lord Dalhousie. Dalhousie introduced uniform postage rates and helped to pass the India Post Office Act 1854 which significantly improved upon 1837 Post Office act which had introduced regular post offices in India. It created the position Director General of Post for the whole country.
A postal order or postal note is a type of money order usually intended for sending money through the mail. It is purchased at a post office and is payable at another post office to the named recipient. A fee for the service, known as poundage, is paid by the purchaser. In the United States, this is known as a postal money order. Postal orders are not legal tender, but a type of promissory note, similar to a cheque.
Bophuthatswana began issuing its own postal orders shortly after gaining independence from South Africa in 1977. As Bophuthatswana did not have its own banknotes, postal orders are the closest things to banknotes Bophuthatswana ever had. The last day of issue was 26 April 1994.
The United Kingdom was the first country in the world to issue postal orders on 1 January 1881. They were the brainchild of the president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, John Skirrow Wright which was to enable poorer people to buy goods and services by post, as they were unlikely to have bank accounts. The rich had bank accounts and could write cheques. A delegation of the Birmingham Chamber went to the annual meeting of chambers of commerce in London and John Skirrow Wright presented the idea, complete with all the details on how it would work including all the postal order values proposed. At first London bankers were against the idea, thinking it would affect their businesses, and the idea was rejected. However, eventually, the bankers realised that the people who would use postal orders were not their customers and therefore no threat to their business. Consequently, at the Annual Meeting a year later John Skirrow Wright presented the idea again and this time it was accepted and the postal order system was started exactly as Skirrow Wright and Birmingham Chamber had proposed.
Postal orders were issued in Ireland from 1881 until they were discontinued in late 2001 just before the change over to the Euro. The current alternative is the An Post Postal Money Order which serves an equivalent purpose.
Postal orders were issued in Hong Kong at various times when it was still a British colony.
Postal orders of Rhodesia were issued some time after the UDI, but it is not yet known when they began to be issued.
The Old Age Pension Order is a close cousin of the postal order that was issued between 1909 and 2005 in the United Kingdom. They were also issued in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, but information about these issues are missing and/or undocumented.
Postal orders were issued in South Africa from 31 May 1910. South Africa issued both its own postal orders and British postal orders.
Postal orders are currently issued in Gibraltar by the Royal Gibraltar Post Office.
The first postal orders of Nigeria were issued by the British colonial authorities. Later, Nigeria issued its own postal orders, first in £,s,d, and then in the new currency of the Naira. In 2018, the postal order system was replaced by a cheaper money order system.
Postal codes in Brunei are known as postcodes and they are alphanumeric, consisting of two letters followed by four digits. Postcodes in Brunei are issued by the Postal Services Department, a government department under the Ministry of Communications.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Brunei.
The Brunei Postal Services Department is a government department which is responsible for providing postal service in Brunei.
Postal orders of British North Borneo were issued as British postal orders at various times prior to 1963, when it was ceded to become one of the states of Malaysia under the name of Sabah. Postal orders of British North Borneo are considered as collectible items and listed under a separate issuer entity by the GB Overprints Society and the Postal Order Society.