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.
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.
The Department of Posts, d/b/a India Post, is an Indian public sector postal system statutory body headquartered in New Delhi, India. It is an organisation under the Ministry of Communications. Generally known as the Post Office, it is the most widely distributed postal system in the world, and India is the country that has the largest number of post offices in the world. It is involved in delivering mail (post), remitting money by money orders, accepting deposits under Small Savings Schemes, providing life insurance coverage under Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) and providing retail services like bill collection, sale of forms, etc.
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 to the named recipient at another post office. 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 have been issued by Cyprus at various times. Information about them is not easily available.
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 orders have been issued in Namibia since it became independent in 1990. The first issues were overprinted in red 'REPUBLIC OF NAMIBIA' on the remainders of the postal orders of South West Africa.
Postal codes in Brunei Darussalam 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 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.