The challenges facing Australia Post in maintaining its niche as a provider of payment services receives many mentions in its annual report, through few metrics are provided to measure progress of this business.The report, released yesterday, does say that Post processed more than 120 million bill payments in-store in the year to June 2011, a figure not mentioned in recent annual reports. The 2010 annual report did note, though, that revenue from over-the-counter payments fell seven per cent.There is no mention once again of transaction volume in Post Billpay this year.The annual report confirms "declines in the number of agency-based bill payment and banking transactions conducted via our retail network" and notes that "customer foot traffic is falling."The annual report implies that new distribution arrangements (for instance, with NAB over business banking products and ING Direct for term deposits) helped lift revenue in the financial services business of Post by 0.6 per cent.Post said that revenues from its "trusted services" activities, such as identity checks for banks and passport applications, increased 2.8 per cent. Revenues from the sale of travel cards appear to fall under this heading.One effort by Post to modernise its financial services offering was the acquisition in December 2010, a processor of online credit card payments processor SecurePay.Post confirmed that it paid more than A$30 million for this business. The notes to the accounts put the goodwill at $32.2 million. Revenue and net profit for the period of Post's ownership to June 2011 were $6.3 million and $1.4 million respectively. Full-year revenue and profit for SecurePay were $12.1 million and $3.1 million.