Showing posts with label Warren Buffet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Warren Buffet. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

What does Warren Buffett know about the future of the USPS?

In his quarterly filing of investment holdings, Warren Buffett announced a new investment by Berkshire Hathaway in a competitor to the Postal Service.  That competitor is Fiserv. (FISV)   With this investment, Berkshire Hathaway becomes the 6th largest investor in the company.

Fiserv is not a household name . However, many of the services that it now offers were originally developed by a company called Checkfree that it purchased a number of years ago.   Fiserv has expanded those services and has continued to see its volume and revenue grow as consumers shift away from payments by mail.   Fiserv's clients include a full range of companies that send bills and receive payments including banks, other financial institutions, retailers, health clubs, and utilities.   Fiserv's services that compete with the Postal Service can be found on its page describing its biller solutions.  These solutions include:

  • On-demand bill pay – agent, Web and IVR
  • E-lockbox and remittance processing
  • Walk-in bill pay – more than 20,000 locations nationwide
  • Electronic bill pay (EBP) at your site
  • Electronic bill pay (EBP) beyond your site
  • Bill delivery – print and mail
  • Bill delivery – paperless billing
  • Targeted messaging – transpromotional, direct mail, e-mail or in-statement
Fiserv actually markets its services as solutions for what it calls the postal sector.   Its website touts its postal sector service as follows:

As e-mail and e-documents continue to flourish, they challenge the amount of physical mail being delivered. Fiserv can help you bridge the gap between physical mail and the electronic world. Whether you offer purely physical mail services, run a hybrid mail center and are looking to add electronic functionality to your existing service or are seeking to enhance your postal banking service, Fiserv has the solution for you.

With Fiserv, you can extend electronic delivery and payment capabilities to your customers, enhance your trusted client relationship, provide a centralized e-document repository and strengthen your brand and the value of your e-post portal.