NZ Post looking to offload Paihia and Kawakawa stores

New Zealand Post is looking to exit its PostShops in Paihia and Kawakawa.

However, the state-owned company says that would not mean the Bay of Islands towns would lose postal and Kiwibank services - just that someone else would operate them.

NZ Post currently owns PostShops in Whangarei Central, Onerahi, Kawakawa, Paihia, Kaikohe and Kaitaia.

Elsewhere in Northland, such as Kerikeri, Dargaville and Mangonui, postal and banking services are run as agencies or franchise operations, usually within other businesses such as grocery stores or bookshops.

NZ Post now wants to turn its Kawakawa and Paihia branches into agencies and is looking for local businesses willing to take on banking and postage.

NZ Post store network manager Jon Andrews said the changes were a response to how and where customers were using services.

Customers would be told where services would move to once agreements had been reached.

The PostShops would remain in their current locations and continue to offer full postal and banking services until new operators were found, Mr Andrews said.

Currently NZ Post owns six PostShops in Northland while another six are run as agencies. More than 30 PostCentres, usually in small towns, offer postal services only.