Royal Mail rival to launch stamp service

A private postal operator is to become the first company to sell stamps other than the Royal Mail when it launches a service aimed at small businesses this spring.

A private postal operator is to become the first company to sell stamps other than the Royal Mail when it launches a service aimed at small businesses this spring.

DX Services, which was demerged from the Hays group in November, said it expected to begin trials with stamped mail in Scotland and Northern Ireland in the next six to eight weeks.

The stamps will be sold in sheets and will feature the DX logo and a bar code but no design and no Queen's head, unlike the Charles and Camilla commemorative wedding stamps issued yesterday by Royal Mail.

Nevertheless, Peter Brougham, the chief executive of DX, disclosed that the company had been approached by philatelists keen to buy first editions. "It doesn't seem to matter what they look like. It's whether they are the first ones produced and have a serial number which shows that," he said.

Mr Brougham estimated that the stamp service could be of interest to 6,000 of the small businesses whichuse its document exchange network. Users will post the stamped letters into one of DX's document exchanges but they will be delivered at the other end through the letter box.

DX's maiden interim results showed an operating profit of £15.4m before goodwill amortisation.