TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 2005
BORDERFREE: GROWING THE CATALOGUE MARKET
Canadians who want to buy online
from U.S. retailers have been provided a seamless shopping
experience through Canada Post Borderfree, a new entity designed
to support Canada Post’s catalogue business strategy. (See
PERFORMANCE June/July) The benefits are to Canadian consumers
who can see the true landed costs in Canadian funds when they
deal with an affiliated online retailer and then benefit from
the logistics and delivery support of Canada Post. The
participating U.S. retailers –including Crate and Barrel;
Sephora and Puma, eBay sellers – feel they can now offer
Canadians the same type of experience as their domestic
customers. Eventually, Canada Post Borderfree plans to develop
the same service for Canadian catalogue retailers moving into
the U.S. market.
SEARS SELLS CREDIT CARD UNIT
Sears Canada Inc. announced it
will sell its credit card portfolio to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for
a reported $2.2 billion in cash. Chief Executive, Brent
Hollister, expects to return substantial proceeds to
shareholders, according to the press release. The deal, expected
to close by the end of this year, includes both Sears Canada’s
private label cards, as well as those co-branded with
MasterCard. The two companies also reportedly agreed to a
10-year marketing and servicing pact. Sears Canada’s credit card
division has $2.5 billion in outstanding loans and 10 million
accounts, the third largest portfolio in the country. It will
receive more than $100 million in annual performance payments
from JPMorgan Chase based on items such as credit sales, new
account generation and sales of additional financial products.
IMPACT 2006 DELIVERS PRIORITIES
Results of the NAMMU National
Forum: IMPACT 2006: Gateway to Positive Change, held August
25th, delivered the key priorities for the Association’s 2005
annual report from the mailing industry. (Click
here to read Forum highlights) The report to be delivered
this fall, will address process change, mailer interface,
address management, volume growth, delivery performance, as well
as ideas generated for specific types of mail.
PARTIAL INDUCTION CHALLENGES RVU
Providing reports that align with
actual deposits is an issue for some LVM’s and this challenges
Canada Post RVU attempting to verify incoming mail. Software
solutions have been discussed, and IMPACT 2006 delivered
partnership criteria ideas that could potentially tailor
conventional RVU activities to a reliable and closer customer
interface. If reconciliation of partial induction shipments is
an issue for you and you would like to participate in an
industry discussion aimed at an acceptable conclusion(s), please
contact
executive@nammu.org by September 20.
CPA APPROVES THIRD OPTION
The Canadian Payments Association
(CPA) released new specifications for Canadian cheques in
January 2005 in preparation for transition to image-based
clearing. The new specifications are necessary to ensure that
high quality cheque images can be captured by financial
institutions for clearing purposes, and to enhance processing
efficiency. A key change to cheque specifications is the
adoption of a numeric date field. Given comments received since
the launch of Standard 006 which allowed two formats for the
date field, the CPA has announced the addition of the
international date format as a third option. To facilitate the
use of bilingual cheques by organizations wishing to do so, the
amended standard now accommodates the option of bilingual date
field indicators for the international date format. All Canadian
cheques should conform with the new specifications as outlined
in CPA Standard 006, Part A, by December 2006. Member
organizations that print their own cheques are strongly
encouraged to provide samples of their new cheques to their
financial institution’s Quality Assurance Division to confirm
they meet the new requirements. Read more:
click here
BLACK & WHITE: A CELEBRATION OF THE BEST OF MAIL
The NAMMU 2005 mailing industry
awards celebrate excellence in the dominant use of the mail
channel. May the best mail win! Download your campaign entry
forms (final entry close: October 5th) or purchase your tickets
to the Awards Ceremony to be held November 2nd at the Design
Exchange.
Click here!
Be a part of it! Generate
goodwill, increase awareness and heighten the visibility of your
brand through event sponsorship. Contact:
sponsorship@nammu.org
