Geeta Minocha: USPS is Under Serious Threat – and No One is Talking About It
By Geeta Minocha
A leaked Wells Fargo memo has revealed a quiet but explosive threat to one of America’s most vital public institutions. Dated February 2025, the internal document analyzes the financial upside of privatizing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), outlining how segmenting and selling off its parcel operations could unlock tens of billions in real estate and market opportunities. Parcel rates, the memo notes, could increase by 30–140% under private control—a windfall for investors, but a disaster for the wallets of millions of Americans who rely on USPS every day.
But behind the spreadsheets, another possibility looms: banking.
The memo sheds light on how deeply the financial sector is eyeing public infrastructure, not just for logistics value, but as a potential vehicle to expand private banking into every corner of the country. And in doing so, it raises urgent questions about who gets to control the systems through which everyday Americans manage their money—and who gets left out.
USPS is more than just a shipping service. It is the only federal agency explicitly required to serve every U.S. address, regardless of cost or profit. It connects rural and urban communities, facilitates voting, and has long been a ladder for economic mobility through good jobs and union wages. Its universal mandate stands in stark contrast to private-sector models that prioritize profitability over equity.
That public mandate might soon extend back into financial services. Postal banking—offered in the U.S. until 1967—has reemerged as a compelling proposal to serve the nearly 6 million unbanked households nationwide. Advocates have called for USPS to offer basic financial functions like checking accounts, small-dollar loans, and bill pay services—amenities often denied or heavily monetized by private banks. Such a system could undercut predatory payday lenders and make financial inclusion a public guarantee rather than a private privilege.
Of course, in today’s increasingly digital financial landscape, promoting a brick-and-mortar model of banking via USPS may not be the most forward-looking solution. But even the symbolic threat of a public option — especially one with the reach and trust of the postal service – tends to rattle market incumbents. This is one reason why a major bank like Wells Fargo is investing resources into analyzing USPS operations. The memo signals that USPS is seen not just as a logistics network, but as a dormant financial giant—one whose infrastructure and data could be harnessed to expand banking footprints into underserved markets.
And that infrastructure is unmatched. With over 31,000 retail locations, USPS reaches every ZIP code in the country—urban, rural, tribal, and everything in between. Unlike traditional banks, post offices already exist where private financial institutions won’t go. If privatized, that network could be transformed into a powerful customer acquisition engine for banks—and in the process, strip away the USPS’s public mission.
The Wells Fargo memo also highlights USPS’s real estate portfolio, estimated to be worth $85–90 billion. This includes thousands of post offices, sorting facilities, and distribution centers—many in prime or high-need locations. Selling them off could generate huge profits for investors.
But once those assets are gone, they’re gone. And with them goes the capacity to provide universal access to mail, identity verification, secure document delivery, and—potentially—public banking in communities long ignored by Wall Street.
Even more quietly, USPS holds another asset banks would love to tap: data. Its logistics system processes massive volumes of consumer and business information, including regional economic trends and address-level activity. Financial institutions could use that data to assess creditworthiness, guide lending strategies, and expand operations into communities where they currently lack insight—all without ever building a local presence.
The privatization playbook is already in motion: USPS has operated under a legal monopoly on letter delivery and mailbox access, ensuring universal service even where it isn’t profitable. But first-class mail volume has dropped 41% since 2006, weakening USPS’s financial position and prompting calls for reform. Rather than reinvesting in its public role, some see this as an opportunity to break it apart—and sell it for parts.
Privatization might look efficient on paper, but it would represent a profound loss. Expanding USPS’s services—such as reviving postal banking, partnering on digital identity infrastructure, or exploring fintech collaborations—offers a future where public institutions evolve to meet modern needs. But that future is slipping away fast.
Applying Elon Musk’s recent call to “privatize anything that can be privatized” to USPS would gut more than just mail delivery. It would hand over a federally protected, community-rooted network to private banks and logistics firms with no obligation to serve the public interest. It would empower Wall Street to reshape the financial lives of millions, especially in the very places it has long neglected. And it would do so in the name of profit, not the middle class.
The stakes are clear, and the clock is ticking. Americans must decide: Do we want to preserve a nationwide system designed to serve everyone, or allow it to be carved up and sold to the highest bidder? Once the infrastructure is gone—once the buildings are sold, the routes dismantled, the services narrowed—it won’t come back. And the communities that depend on it will be left to fend for themselves.
The time to act is now. Privatization of our most critical public goods isn’t a future threat—it’s an active agenda. Preserving and expanding USPS’s public mission is not just possible—it’s necessary. Because the question isn’t just what we do with the mail. It’s whether public goods still belong to the public
Geeta Minocha is a lawyer, public finance expert, and founder of the Ohio Public Banking Coalition. Her writing and advocacy have influenced national policy debates in both finance and health care.
