10/7/2021
FYI to pawnbrokers offering check cashing as an additional customer service…
No offense to hard-working postal employees…but the push to add certain banking services to the U.S. Post Office must be from Members of Congress who don’t send/receive their own mail. An amendment tucked into last year’s appropriations bill provided $2 million to the USPS for a postal banking pilot program.
This program is currently operating in four offices…Washington, DC, Baltimore, MD, Falls Church, VA and Bronx, NY with a check cashing service. Business and payroll checks accepted up to $500 in exchange for a single-use gift card with a $5.95 flat fee charge. No cash will be given for any checks.
The ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania had this to say, “The idea that the government is going to do a better job” providing banking services than financial institutions “is just laughable.” “You would have to work very hard to come up with a worse idea than having the government become a national bank through the post office.” “Even if the USPS was the most competent, professional, and best-run organization on the planet, they should not be in the business of banking. We have banks.”
So, this begs the question…will the U. S. Post Office have to register as a MSB with FinCen as required of any business offering check cashing services?
Fran Bishop, Team GRC
