My journey with the postal world began when I was about six years old. I vividly remember accompanying my father to the local post office, where he would unlock a small box – one among many embedded in the wall. Sometimes, there were envelopes waiting inside, which felt almost magical; other times, the box was empty, and that was far less exciting.
Years later, in 2012 and 2013, I studied India’s evolving Aadhaar programme – a national digital ID programme – and saw first-hand how India Post was innovating in financial products and services to support inclusion. I remember being deeply impressed.Today, I work on complex projects at the intersection of digital transformation, financial and non-financial services, and postal sector evolution across multiple countries. Through research and collaboration with global stakeholders, postal operators, experts and technology companies, I have come to see Posts as a precious public asset – one that, unfortunately, is often overlooked.
The Post: a natural partner for last-mile reach, access and gender equality
By design, Posts create immense economic value. A UPU study from 2023 estimates that, without them, a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) would decline by nearly 7%, underscoring their critical contribution to national economies.
Posts are uniquely positioned to support women and rural communities through financial services such as cash disbursements, payment facilities and savings schemes. Women – who are central to financial ecosystems as entrepreneurs, agents and influencers – can be further empowered through postal reforms and fintech partnerships. Indeed, Posts’ public service mandate, combined with their vast physical network of 680,000 offices worldwide, positions them as catalysts for inclusive growth in the digital era in which the human touch remains so very important.
A recent UPU study that I led examines the potential of Post-fintech collaboration for women’s financial inclusion. The report, published in March 2025, advocates an approach that leverages Posts’ community presence and co-creation with fintechs for gender-intentional product and service design. This, in turn, will better serve women, unlock significant economic potential[1] and advance financial inclusion agendas on a large scale.
With their “phygital” infrastructure, their diverse and gender-inclusive customer base, and their brand affinity, Posts can tailor services to women’s needs, bridging the gender gap in financial inclusion and driving national economic growth.
The missing link: deeper customer understanding
Despite their reach and trust, a striking challenge persists: Posts often lack a deep understanding of their customers. Many operate with a transactional approach, serving walk-in clients without maintaining customer records and data trails or logging behavioural insights.
This means that Posts are missing a significant opportunity. By leveraging their vast and predominantly female customer base[2], they could increase revenue while also building long-term relationships. Moreover, data-driven strategies can shape national inclusion policies, drive economic growth and enhance living standards – especially for women, who remain disproportionately excluded from formal financial systems.
Unlocking potential: a blueprint for transformation
Postal operators are sitting on a goldmine of untapped potential. With their extensive capillarity and community presence, they can serve as key data collection points, critical to informing decision making and gender-responsive policies.
Equipped with tools such as customer relationship management systems, Posts can improve service delivery and gain insights into customer behaviour. This data can inform product development, marketing strategies and policy decisions tailored to the needs of underserved populations, including women.
Diversifying services through private- and public-sector partnerships can strengthen financial sustainability while expanding community access to essential products and services. Strategic reforms can also ensure that universal service obligations are met in economically viable ways, allowing profitability in Posts’ other business lines.
With the right infrastructure, digital integration, policy support and strong visionary leadership, Posts can advocate for gender equality and generate valuable data-driven insights from community usage trends and remittance patterns, as well as SME requirements and growth. More importantly, collecting sex-disaggregated data, which is essential for national inclusion agendas, will help governments understand gender disparities and implement effective policies to encourage gender equality.
By digitalizing physical branches and creating real-time data systems, Posts can serve as vital conduits for fostering economic empowerment for women while contributing actively to evidence-based governance. This is digital public infrastructure with a human touch – one that recognizes women’s pivotal role in economic and social progress.
A 150-year legacy getting ready for the future
Last year, the UPU celebrated its 150th anniversary. Few institutions have served so many generations while continually redefining their role in national development and cross-border trade.
It is time to reimagine Posts as more than mail and parcel carriers or financial agents. Let us consider them as one-stop shops for communities, facilitating access to markets, finance, e-commerce, logistics, government services, healthcare, education and more.
Governments can leverage Posts as conduits for financial literacy, change management and community engagement, serving as catalysts for local action. At the same time, Posts can collect, analyze and disaggregate data to guide policy decisions that drive gender equality, economic inclusion and growth.
The postal sector is not a relic of the past; it is a powerful and underutilized force for transformation. With government investment in modernization, partnerships with tech and fintech companies, regulatory reform and frameworks mandating the collection of sex-disaggregated data, Posts can become transformative agents of change, advancing gender equality and key sustainable development goals.
Let us act for the Posts, with the Posts. Our time is now.
[1] Nearly a decade ago, a McKinsey Global Institute report estimated that advancing women’s equality could add 12 trillion USD to global GDP between 2015 and 2025 (Woetzel et al., 2015). Other research shows that financial products and services addressing women’s needs could generate an estimated 700 billion USD in annual revenue for the financial services industry (Wyman, 2019; Dimova, 2023).
[2] Gender and Financial Inclusion through the Post. UN Women/UPU.
Read the UPU study (2025) here.
Sahana Arun Kumar
Partner and Managing Director, Amarante Consulting
As a digital finance and inclusion expert, Sahana Arun Kumar led the UPU research behind the study’s key insights and needs analysis. She has over 16 years of experience of working with public- and private-sector entities on digital transformation and “phygital” public infrastructure that drive sustainable growth.