Given their widespread presence in rural and poor areas, post offices can play a leading role in advancing financial inclusion. Yet little is known about the type of clients that post offices reach through their financial service offerings as compared with clients of traditional financial...

Postal networks in the nine countries in the Asian region profiled here have 289,067 post offices. In many of these Asian countries, post offices have provided payments and savings services for more than 130 years. At the end of 2002, 335 million Asians had postal savings accounts, for a total...