Australia Post has completed a so-called digital transformation, which it says will equip it to compete in online services as customers post fewer letters.
Under chief executive Ahmed Fahour the organisation has spent the past five years building up its digital operations, aiding its current push to become the manager of consumers' online identities as they shop and conduct their financial affairs online. 
Australia Post's executive general manager of trusted e-commerce solutions, Andrew Walduck, said the organisation was now looking to extend existing work it has won, such as fully digital police checks in Western Australia, across the country, and can now offer digital services to companies across sectors.
"The next path is around our trusted solutions. Digital identity-based products that can help with, for example, verifying identity when a customer is applying for a digital service," Mr Walduck said.
The comments come after Mr Fahour told The Australian Financial Review Business Summit that the company was exploring the use of blockchain technology. "The future is going to be a digital identity, so that when you say who you are, I can tell who you are," Mr Fahour said at the time.
Mr Walduck said Australia Post was looking at blockchain technology as a possible way to expand and develop its identification technology.
"It's something we're researching. Our focus now is on how we want to start designing products and services with our customers and doing that in an integrated way." But Australia Post is not shying away from deliveries. It has recently developed the MyPost portal, which lets customers track their parcels and specify pick-up options. Last week it also announced that it was trialling the use of drones in South Melbourne to deliver parcels.
Mr Walduck said changing the focus of the 1000-plus person organisation had required a shift in the internal culture that had developed over many decades. It decided to start small, creating a new division known as the Digital Delivery Centre (DDC), which could act as an innovative and fast-paced team unshackled from the legacy of old-world IT systems.
The group has now grown to over 200 people.
"The team started with about 16 people who at the time were there to look after the online services of the organisation," Mr Walduck said. "It was built from the ground up to ensure its method of working, its culture and its infrastructure [were] all built as something that would let us achieve outcomes quickly."
Underpinning Australia Post's push into digital has been a behind-the-scenes shift in its technology set-up, which saw a third of its systems move to the cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Mr Walduck said the accessibility of greater computing power on tap meant new ideas could be tested much more quickly than before.
"If you have a new idea, perhaps for a mobile app or something to place on a webpage ... we can start cutting code for it in a day and it can be brought to market in a short period of time," he said.