PayPoint, the UK’s best known and most used over-the-counter payment solutions provider has teamed up with Cool Milk at School to allow parents to pay for their children’s school milk at PayPoint outlets.

Cool Milk at School operates administration schemes for Local Education Authorities throughout the UK, enabling the provision of school milk at break time to over 6,000 schools.  There are currently 500,000 parents who partake in the scheme.

Cool Milk at School provides a 189ml of semi-skimmed milk per registered child, per school day.  The cost to parents is approximately 19p per day. The cost is kept low because of a subsidy provided by the EU.

PayPoint retailers will earn 1% commission uncapped on all Cool Milk at School transactions.

The PayPoint link up will enable the 11 per cent of households without a bank account (over 2,750,000 UK households) or those who prefer to pay in cash to participate in the scheme and is a significant step towards school milk provision for all.*

Jon Thornes, Cool Milk at School’s Managing Director comments: “With so many people without a bank account, we need to make the effort to allow everyone the opportunity to buy their children’s school milk. Our adoption of the PayPoint network is very much a consumer-led initiative and we are sure that it will make the process of giving children a healthy drink at school more convenient for many people.”

Mike Igoe, PayPoint’s Retail Director comments: “We are delighted to be partnering with Cool Milk for School, giving our retailers another scheme to offer to their customer base. The pushed for time parent is a key consumer for PayPoint and payment schemes of this nature all help to increase footfall into stores and the associated sales.”

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

Notes to Editors
*According to the Family Resources Survey, DWP: Great Britain (Aug 2007) 11 per cent of UK households do not have a bank account.

ABOUT PAYPOINT

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 terminals 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, 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 30 November 2007 was £443 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.

ABOUT COOL MILK AT SCHOOL

Cool Milk at School was established in 1998, and offers milk to more than half a million children in 6000 schools and preschools across the UK. The milk is provided at a subsidised rate, with funds from both the UK and the EU.

Parents of children in schools registered with Cool Milk register their children for a daily serving of milk. Please visit www.coolmilk.com for further information.

Cool Milk aims to improve the health of children by ensuring the availability of milk within as many UK primary schools as possible. Interested schools should contact 0800 321 3248.