Bern, Switzerland - The global postal sector has been hit by the economic crisis but the downturn also has financial benefits, the Universal Postal Union said Thursday.

The crisis was most advantageous for post offices that were able to offer financial services.

"Some European operators, such as Swiss Post and Deutsche Post, are experiencing annual growth rates above 50 per cent in the number of postal deposits and savings accounts opened in 2008," the UPU said, noting that a similar phenomenon occurred during the Great Depression.

Postal officials said clients had greater faith in the government backed post offices during a crisis than in commercial banks.

Jean-Paul Bailly, the chief executive officer of La Poste in France, said his financial services wing had no exposure to toxic assets and was seeing increased revenues in the past months.

The UPU was holding its annual high-level meeting, attended by postal officials from over 100 countries.

In Switzerland, Post Finance, the financial arm of the government's Swiss Post, reported in February that in 2008 the inflow of new money totalled 5.9 billion francs (5.2 billion dollars) on average over the year.

The Alpine country's biggest banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse, reported large net outflows of cash last year.

In terms of traditional postal services, the news was not as good, as parcel and letter posts were generally seeing drops in volume.

Domestic letter post was "feeling the brunt of the crisis' impact," the UPU said, as operators reported a 5.9 per cent average decrease in volume in last quarter of 2008. A main reason for this was the decline in direct mail due to the economic downturn.

Domestic parcel volumes were up slightly in the fourth quarter, following declines in previous quarters. International parcel volumes, however, saw drops of about 4.5 per cent at the end of last year.

International letter post was showing signs of stability, attributed to the fact that it was not reliant on direct mail.

The overall declines, the UPU said trying to be optimistic, were far from the record drops recorded in the early 1930s.

The union was founded in 1874 as a intergovernmental agency and became part of the United Nations following World War II.

The international postal sector employed directly about 5.5 million people worldwide in 2007.(dpa)