Post Office Limited, formerly Post Office Counters Limited and commonly known as the Post Office, is a state-owned retail post office company in the United Kingdom that provides a wide range of postal and non-postal related products including postage stamps, banking, insurance, bureau de change and identity verification services to the public through its nationwide network of around 11,500 branches. Most of these branch post offices are run by franchise partners or by independent business people known as subpostmasters; Post Office Limited directly manages the remaining 1%, known as Crown post offices.