Paypoint : 8 Years of PayPoint in Romania, benefitting millions of Romanians

11 August 2016Group news
Retail payments and services

Bucharest, 11 August 2016 - PayPoint Romania, the main retail-based cash and mobile payment operator in Romania is today celebrating its 8 birthday since the launch of the Bill Payment service in Romania. The company experienced spectacular growth in this period, handling over 215 million bill payment transaction from the launch until the end of the 2015-2016 financial year.

The increase in transactions handled has been driven by the coverage and quality of the network of partner stores and, of course, the portfolio of suppliers for whom consumers can make payments. At the moment, PayPoint has 120 partners, with both national and local coverage (the largest portfolio of its kind) and its services are present in over 10.200 stores country-wide (the largest national network).

The past eight years in Romania have seen efforts made by PayPoint for sustained growth and, at the same time, investments in building awareness and gaining Romanians' trust. In 2008, when the service was launched, consumers were reluctant towards this new method of payment, because they were not used to associate paying bills to the retail environment. Today, the degrees of awareness, usage, satisfaction and loyalty from the consumers say plenty about PayPoint's evolution. At a national level, among those responsible with making household payments, 90.3% of respondents say they had heard about the seller-assisted payment terminals category (where PayPoint is the main player), 65.7% of them have used these terminals, while 49.5% say they used them in the past three months (making it the second most used payment channel nationally).*

Among PayPoint users interviewed near PayPoint partner stores, 75.3% say paying at in-store seller-assisted payment terminals is the most advantageous payment method ever used. Consequently, they show high degrees of loyalty and frequency of usage: 76.1% have been using PayPoint's services for more than a year, 90% of them pay at least one bill every month and 79% would search for another PayPoint store if the current one became unavailable.*

''From the beginning, we wanted to be the company that simplifies payments for as many Romanians as possible. To this end, we always emphasized innovation and made constant efforts to be where Romanians need us, with the services they need. We find that, increasingly, ''PayPoint' has entered many Romanians' vocabulary, some use it as a common noun or to name any type of payment terminal available in the market. We are glad that we have defined this category and we will continue to consolidate our position of «payment specialists»', said Mugur Dogariu, Managing Director PayPoint Romania.

Through PayPoint, consumers can make a wide range of payments in partner stores: bills for utilities (gas, electricity, sanitation, water, etc.), mobile phone plans, internet or TV cable, security services, financial services, plane tickets and road tax, as well as buy mobile phone top-ups and even transfer money, both internally and internationally, at selected PayPoint locations.

To make a payment, customers must simply go to the nearest PayPoint store with their payment document where the attendant handles the transaction; they take the money in cash and hand the customers a receipt with all the transactions' details (date, amount etc.). The whole operation is very quick and, in order to use the PayPoint system, consumers do not have to pay any additional fees or shop at the store.

*The data was taken from the results of studies done by Millward Brown for PayPoint Romania at national level between April and May 2016, when the following methods were employed: interviews in front of selected PayPoint partner stores from urban and rural areas (1000 respondents, 18-65 years old, users and non-users of PayPoint's system) and phone interviews (1000 respondents from urban and rural areas, 18-65 years old, responsible for making household payments).