PAYPOINT PLC 27 April 2015 Retail payments and services
Group news
Welwyn Garden City, 27 April 2015: When ratepayers began receiving their rates bills for 2015/16 from Northern Ireland's Department of Finance and Personnel's Land & Property Services last week, they will have noticed a major change to where they can pay their bills.
With effect from 1 April 2015, ratepayers who want to pay their bills in cash have the choice of PayPoint or post offices. This is a major boost for the 1,150 PayPoint retailers in Northern Ireland, who have been unable to accept payments to Land & Property Services in the past.
"We are delighted that retailers with the PayPoint facility can now benefit from the repeat footfall of ratepayers paying their bills in regular instalments using the QuickPay Card," said Andrew Goddard, Retail Director at PayPoint.
"PayPoint is now the only convenience store-based payment network for virtually all household bills in Northern Ireland. This means that residents have even more reasons to visit our retailers who, in turn, have more opportunities to generate additional sales."
Finance Minister Simon Hamilton MLA said: Ratepayers can continue to pay with the Rates QuickPay Card, which, from this year, can be used at PayPoint outlets across Northern Ireland, including garages, newsagents and convenience stores.
"I am committed to delivering high quality and efficient public services in spite of the dual pressures of reduced public spending and the growing demand for our public services. I want to reform our public services and offering easier and more accessible ways to pay rate bills is an important step along the road to reform."
Land & Property Services is the latest in a long list of payments schemes across the UK that are new to PayPoint over the last year, including an entirely new category of digital entertainment vouchers, that enable cash-paying customers to buy e-vouchers for popular global brands Sony PlayStation, Nintendo, Bin Weevils, Skype and Spotify. Other regional schemes include ITSO-compliant transport ticketing for Cardiff Bus and Merseytravel and Derby City Council's switch to exclusive cash payments at PayPoint.
ENDS
PayPoint
Peter Brooker
Head of Corporate Affairs
peterbrooker@paypoint.com
01707 600356 / 07900 418960
PayPoint Press Office
Karla Winch/Cathy Donald
Brands2Life
PayPoint2@brands2life.com
020 7592 1200 / 07793 287749 / 07821 571296
ABOUT PAYPOINT
PayPoint is an international leader in payment technologies, its solutions transforming payments for everyone from consumer and financial services companies to retailers, utilities, media, e-commerce, gaming and government clients.
PayPoint delivers payments and services by taking the complexity of multi-channel payments and translating it into convenient, simple, value-added solutions. It handles almost £15 billion from over 800 million transactions annually for more than 6,000 clients and merchants.
With the backing of 24/7 operations centres with dual site processing, PayPoint is widely recognised for its leadership in payment systems, smart technology and service.
Retail networks
The PayPoint retail network across the UK numbers over 28,200 local shops (including Co-op, Spar, McColls, Costcutter, Sainsbury's Local, Tesco Express, One Stop, Asda, Londis and thousands of independents), where it processes energy meter pre-payments, bill payments, benefit payments, mobile phone top-ups, transport tickets, BBC TV licences, cash withdrawals and a range of other transactions. In Romania, the retail network numbers over 9,000 terminals in local shops, helping people to make cash bill payments, money transfers, road tax payments and mobile phone top-ups. In the Republic of Ireland, over 500 terminals in shops and credit unions process mobile top-ups and bill payments.
Collect+, a joint venture with Yodel, provides a parcel drop-off and pick-up service at more than 5,800 PayPoint retailers. PayPoint's ATM network numbers more than 3,900 'LINK' branded machines across the UK, and 9,700 PayPoint terminals enable retailers to accept credit and debit cards.
Mobile and Online
PayPoint Mobile and Online (formerly trading as PayPoint.net, PayByPhone and Adaptis) handles over 142 million payments for parking, payments and consumer services. In major cities in the UK, Canada, USA, France, Switzerland and Australia, its parking solutions make it easy for people to pay for parking by mobile, as well as providing electronic parking permits, automatic number plate recognition systems for car parks and penalty charge notices.
PayPoint's core online payments platform is linked to 16 major acquiring banks in the UK, Europe and North America, delivering secure credit and debit card payments for over 4,800 online merchants. Its suite of products ranges from transaction gateway to a bureau service, in addition to value-added services such as FraudGuard, an advanced service that mitigates the risk of fraud in card not present transactions.
|
distributed by
|
