The Evolution Of Franked Mail

If your business uses a franking machine or any other mailroom service to send out your mail on a daily basis, the odds are you are saving a lot of money. The main reason for this being that franking is far cheaper and more beneficial than the traditional method of stamping. If you are not using a franking machine in your mailroom, we suggest that you should start thinking about migrating to franked mail as the savings that can be made are huge.

With this in mind, we decided it may be of interest to you to take a look at the evolution of franked mail and what modern mailroom services are currently available to you. The evolution of franked mail dates way back to the 17th (yes 17th) century.

The Franking Privilege

In 1660, the UK Parliament created the General Post Office via the passage an an act that authorised the creation of the General Post Office. This is where a limited version of the franking privilege originates from. However many lawmakers wanted a special form of postage that would guarantee the upper class were benefiting more from the General Post Office – by paying less or nothing to send letters. This benefit is what is known as the franking privilege, and it allowed eligible people to sign for their outgoing mail items instead of paying the standard postage rates.

By 1772, the General Post Office was losing revenue of more than a third, and this was all down to the use of franked letters by the upper class. By the start of the 19th century the Post Office was making such a huge loss that lawmakers had to significantly reduce the use of the franking privilege.

Mail Franking Categories

The franking privilege is not widely used anymore in today’s modern era, but it still exists in some areas of the world. Franked mail that is being sent for international delivery is governed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU). The UPU currently recognises four different kinds of franked mail, which are:

1. Postage Franking

2. Franking Privilege

3. Official Business

4. Business Reply

Do You Send Franked Mail?

Now that you have a little more knowledge about the evolution of franked mail and what mailroom services are currently available to you, we must ask whether your company currently benefit from using a franking machine or not? As mentioned previously, the potential savings are great and your mailroom will become far more efficient and productive. If you do not use a franking machine to frank your mail, we suggest enquiring today.

If you are interested in getting a franking machine or upgrading to a Mailmark franking machine with even lower prices available, then please view our franking machine page here or call us today on 01543 572 776.

We are a Royal Mail Authorised Independent Inspector & Maintainer of Franking Machines with over 20,000 customers nationwide and we can supply you with our very own range of models.