Ask HN: Why doesn't USPS act as a payment processor?

piratesAndSons | 11 points

Because powerful people like being able to deny banking services without strong legal grounds. Everyone who complained about https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/12/2025-15... would be opposed to your idea too, because they want to be able to debank people they don't like.

josephcsible | a day ago

The USPS offers and redeems Postal Money Orders. There's your (inconvenient, expensive) payment processor right there.

toast0 | 13 hours ago

I've argued[0] for similar involvement by the USPS. Got a lot of "good idea!" comments and no traction.

[0] https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/se...

tldrthelaw | a day ago

USPS should have issued every American an official government email address 20 years ago

pants2 | a day ago

Don’t you think they’ve got enough to do already with dwindling resources?

JojoFatsani | a day ago

Sure, postal banking [0] has been around forever. Could it be updated to the modern day and in the US? Of course! Why not? Because we apparently just can't have nice things.

It's a perfectly good idea that just doesn't have political traction in this era.

We could also have, you know, universal health care. Like any other normal country.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_savings_system

iwanttocomment | a day ago

do you have a moment to talk about your savior the Congressional Lobbyist?

nacozarina | a day ago