The United States Postal Service has finally laid the postal banking pilot program to rest. However, it’s unlikely anyone noticed. The program didn’t have a single customer from April 2022 to September 2025 (Table 1).
The close of the program is welcome news, but it should never have gotten off the ground to begin with. Postal banking ended in 1966 for a simple reason: it wasn’t popular. There was no reason to think that had changed in 2021 when this program kicked off, and the data confirm this.
Looking forward, Congress should remove the postal banking loophole by amending the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act to prohibit the United States Postal Service from engaging in new financial services without congressional approval. It’s time to put postal banking to rest once and for all.
