From the 1st April 2008, Thames Water Payment Card customers will be making their payments exclusively at PayPoint outlets. PayPoint, the UK’s best known and most used over-the-counter payment solutions provider has secured a new five year contract with Thames Water to handle over two million payment card cash payments made to the company annually.  Additionally, other types of water bill payments paid in cash will be free of charge only at PayPoint outlets from this date.

PayPoint agents in the Thames Water region can expect to benefit from the incremental business generated as this new contract begins due to increasing footfall. Thames Water is the UK’s largest water and sewerage company, serving a population of 13 million customers across London and the South East of England.

Mike Igoe, PayPoint’s Retail Director commented: “Securing a new five year deal with Thames Water is great news for PayPoint agents, who can benefit from the significant extension to the existing arrangements.  PayPoint is delighted to be able to offer Thames amongst their extensive utilities portfolio, ensuring that their customers will continue to benefit from an easier convenient and free way to pay their bills. In turn, this will help retailers within the Thames Water region to further increase footfall and build the associated sales.”

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Enquiries:
PayPoint Press Office
020 7100 9999
paypoint@mischiefpr.com

Notes to Editors
PayPoint is the leading cash and internet payments company in the UK and Ireland, handling in excess of £6 billion in over 470 million transactions annually for more than 5,000 clients and merchants. The company operates with several significant payment streams:

• The PayPoint branded retail network numbers over 19,000 terminal outlets located in local shops (including Co-op, Spar, Costcutter, Sainsburys Local, One Stop, Londis and thousands of independents) in all parts of the UK and Ireland. Terminals handle gas and electricity meter prepayments, cash bill payments, mobile phone top-ups, transport tickets, London Congestion Charges, BBC TV licences and a wide variety of other payment types for all of the leading utilities, telecommunications suppliers and many consumer service companies. This network is used by consumers, free of charge, over 8 million times a week. The network has 97.3% population cover on a 1 mile urban or 5 miles rural measure;
• Additional multiple retailer connections into the electronic till systems of nearly 4,000 outlets including BP, Somerfield and Superdrug for mobile top-ups and selected payments from the PayPoint range;
• The PayPoint ATM network has 1,950 'LINK' branded machines across the UK, also typically in convenience stores;
• PayPoint Internet Payment Services (PPIPS), trading as Metacharge and SECPay, provides secure credit and debit card payments for over 4,500 web merchants linking into all the major UK acquiring banks; and
• PayPoint International has recently acquired a Romanian mobile top-up operator to which a bill payment service will be added, emulating the UK branded retail network. PayPoint International also operates Irish bill payment and top-up services.

PayPoint floated on the London Stock Exchange in September 2004. The company's market capitalisation at 27 November 2007 was £426 million. PayPoint has been awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise and is widely recognised for its leadership in prepayment systems, smart technology and consumer service.