Pos Malaysia Brand Guidelines: Straits Posts, a 1992 Company, Pos Laju & DRB-HICOM

From Penang, Malacca and Singapore.

Pos Malaysia dates its history to the early 1800s. English Wikipedia traces it to postal services set up in the Straits Settlements — Penang, Malacca and Singapore — which spread through the rest of Malaya by the early 20th century. Letters went by dispatch riders or messengers; before stamps, the fee was paid at the post office when a letter was handed in, and the sender was given a receipt. The company says it has a history of more than 200 years, and The Star described its roots in November 2025 as going back to the early 1800s.

The Federated Malay States Posts and Telegraphs Department was formed on 1 January 1905, merging the services of Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang. The five Unfederated Malay States — Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu — set up services of their own between 1876 and 1910. Sources differ on the Malayan Postal Union that brought common rates: English Wikipedia dates it to 1935, the Malay-language Wikipedia to 1907.

The Second World War brought the Japanese occupation. English Wikipedia says Japanese forces took control of the postal services, and its history of Malaysian stamps records that from 1942 stamps of the Straits Settlements were handstamped and later overprinted in Japanese, that Japanese-designed stamps followed in 1943, and that in October 1943 Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu were transferred to Thai administration. In October 1945 the British Military Administration overprinted stamps “B.M.A. MALAYA.”

After the war the Unfederated states joined the union, and in 1949 its agreement was reissued to cover the Federation of Malaya and Singapore. The service took on work for other parts of government — electricity bills from 1946, pensions from 1953 and television licences from 1964 — and, after independence in 1957, was called the Malayan Postal Services Department. When Malaysia was formed on 16 September 1963 it was combined with the services of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore; Singapore’s service separated again in 1966, English Wikipedia says.

A department becomes a company.

The post office once ran a savings bank too. English Wikipedia says the Post Office Savings Bank was replaced by Bank Simpanan Nasional, incorporated on 1 December 1974, which took over the savings function from the postal department. From 1984 the department ran on a self-accounting system, funding itself apart from the government. The Postal Services Act 1991 and the Postal Services (Successor Company) Act 1991 were passed on 12 September 1991, and on 1 January 1992 the department was corporatised as Pos Malaysia Berhad, taking over its postal assets and liabilities. On 28 August 2001 the company was listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange through a reverse takeover of Phileo Allied Berhad.

Today Pos Malaysia sits inside the conglomerate DRB-HICOM. Bernama described it in July 2026 as “Pos Malaysia Bhd, under DRB-HICOM Bhd,” and English Wikipedia lists it among DRB-HICOM’s services companies with Bank Muamalat and Puspakom. Its head office is the Dayabumi Complex in Kuala Lumpur. In a written parliamentary answer reported by Bernama in July 2026, the communications ministry described a transformation plan built on network rationalisation and digital channels, and said the government was examining a Postal Service Fund to support services in less commercially viable areas.

The group runs several brands. Pos Mel covers letters and postcards, including Mel Rakyat, a free aerogramme for domestic non-commercial use. Pos Malaysia began an international expedited mail service in 1986 and launched Pos Laju as its domestic courier in 1988, English Wikipedia says. Pos Logistics grew from Konsortium Logistik, bought on 25 October 2013 by KL Airport Services, a DRB-HICOM subsidiary that became Pos Aviation; Pos Digicert is a certificate authority in Cyberjaya. The company says it holds the sole mandate for the universal postal service, delivers to more than 11 million addresses and has over 3,500 touchpoints.

Design and documentation.

Postal operators are among the oldest names a country carries. Many began as royal or state services centuries ago and became companies only in recent decades, and their identities often hold on to symbols from that past while the business shifts from letters to parcels. Colour does much of the work: red, yellow, blue and orange wordmarks appear on post boxes, vans, uniforms and counters, and a colour can outlast the institution that first chose it. Denmark’s postal service wore red and yellow even before it was nationalised in 1711, and Sweden’s has used a post horn with a crown since its foundation in 1636, according to English Wikipedia.

The symbols repeat across borders. Post horns appear in several European marks; envelopes, birds in flight and arrows suggest movement elsewhere. Names matter too. Many operators use the national name in the local language, or in two or three languages at once, and some now trade under a group name that sits above the post office itself.

Their public faces have changed with the work. Websites now lead with parcels, tracking and delivery options, then letters and stamps and, for some operators, payments, money transfers or banking. Parcel lockers, service points inside shops, delivery vans and counter photography have become as common in their imagery as the post box. Stamp issues remain a design programme of their own, with commemorative sets and products for collectors, and philately keeps older issues in view.

Most of these operators are state-owned, or were until recently, so laws, annual reports and press releases are the main record of their ownership and structure. This guide sets out what those records and independent press say about each operator’s history, ownership and visual habits, and marks the companies’ own claims as theirs.

Redly, Pos Laju and collector stamps.

The brand line-up changed twice within a year. On World Post Day, 9 October 2025, Pos Malaysia launched Redly at its National Mail Centre as a cross-border brand bringing all its international mail and shipping services together, Malay Mail reported. Eight months later the company changed course: in June 2026 The Star reported that all courier services, domestic and international, were being consolidated under the Pos Laju name as a single point of access, reaching up to 230 countries and territories.

The company has also refreshed how it talks about itself. Its website gives the customer promise “We deliver. We connect. We improve lives,” and its marketing chief told The Star in November 2025 that the refreshed brand narrative stresses delivering connection and improving lives through innovation and sustainability. The same report described collaborations: a Pokémon Trading Card Game stamp collection early in 2025, with stamps styled like trading cards and packed in a Poké Ball folder; limited-edition sneakers with the Malaysian footwear brand Sniika; a Ramadan television series with Astro; and a second Pos Malaysia Run.

Stamps remain central. In May 2026, the news agency Bernama reported, it issued a Malaysian parrot collection with the wildlife and national parks department, including a miniature sheet die-cut to the silhouette of a parrot, sold at 90 philatelic bureaus. In June 2026 stamps for Visit Malaysia 2026 were launched at the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, once Kuala Lumpur’s General Post Office, The Star reported.

For a design guide, Pos Malaysia shows a 200-year postal story retold through parcel brands, collector stamps and pop-culture tie-ins. Compare SingPost, whose service shared that history until 1966, and Thailand Post, its northern neighbour. For this guide we use a deep blue, a signal red and an aerogramme paper with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Pos Malaysia’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.