May 21 (SeeNews) - Romania's state-controlled postal services operator Posta Romana said on Thursday that the total volume of the electronic money transfers it handled rose to 3.1 million lei ($701,100/640,200 euro) in the first quarter of the year, compared to 1.4 million lei in the like quarter of 2019.
In April alone, Posta Romana's e-Mandate domestic money transfer service registered 2,591 orders, over three times more than in April 2019, it said in a press release.
Launched in 2002, the service allows customers to send unlimited amounts of money, in lei, to any address in Romania.
In 2018, Posta Romana received a 170 million lei capital injection from the government to repay overdue debt to the state.
The Romanian state owns 93.52% of Posta Romana, with the remainder is held by local property restitution fund Fondul Proprietatea.
Posta Romana has the largest distribution network at the national level. Over 19 million people benefit from its services and more than 7.5 million addresses are covered by the company's own postal network.
In September 2015, the government failed to sell Posta Romana as the Belgian postal services operator bpost, which was the only investor that had shown interest in the privatisation process, did not submit a binding bid for a 51% stake in the company by the specified deadline.
(1 euro=4.8425 lei)