PayPoint, the UK’s leading cash and internet payments company, has launched a national service for the electronic payment of household bills in Romania, where it already processes mobile top-ups through its subsidiary Pay Store.    This network which will be PayPoint branded, is the first purpose-built network of its kind in Romania and will enable customers of the country’s leading telecoms and utility companies to pay their bills at local retailers nationwide.

PayPoint is targeting the 95% of Romanians (c.8m households) who pay for everything in cash. These consumers will benefit from a substantial reduction in the time taken to pay household bills, which otherwise have to be paid individually at a limited number of locations with restricted opening hours.  PayPoint is well placed to capture a significant share of the bill payment market in Romania as privatized utilities look to rationalize their current inefficient and costly cash collection channels.

Dominic Taylor, Chief Executive of PayPoint plc, said: “A year after entering the Romanian market, we have established the foundation of a national terminal network for electronic household bill payments. We chose to invest in Romania because the market is very well-suited to our services.   We have already signed contracts with some of the most important local utility providers and we will continue to diversify the services offered while expanding our retail network close to where consumers work and live.”

PayPoint will continue to offer mobile top up services for all the mobile networks and also electronic recharging services for the operators of phone cards with internet and international access.   PayPoint currently operates over 4,000 terminals in Romania and intends to add 1,500 more by spring 2009. Every transaction, bill payment or electronic mobile recharge, is processed through PayPoint’s technical operations infrastructure in the UK.
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Notes to Editors
PayPoint is the leading cash and internet payments company in the UK also with operations in Ireland and Romania. We handle in excess of £7 billion from over 500 million transactions annually for more than 5,000 clients and merchants. The company operates with several payment networks:

• The PayPoint branded retail network numbers over 20,000 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, 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 99% population cover on a 1 mile urban or 5 miles rural measure;
• Multiple retailer connections into the electronic till systems in addition to the branded terminal outlets including BP, Somerfield and Superdrug for mobile top-ups and selected payments from the PayPoint range;
• An ATM network which has 2,130 ‘LINK’ branded machines across the UK, also typically in convenience stores; 
• PayPoint.net, an internet payment service provider, provides secure credit and debit card payments for over 4,800 web merchants linking into all the major UK acquiring banks; and
• Pay Store, a Romanian mobile top-up operator with over 4,000 outlets equipped with electronic terminals and 2,000 other retail outlets. A bill payment service has been added to increase the breadth of PayPoint’s offering in Romania, in line with the UK branded retail network.

PayPoint plc floated on the London Stock Exchange in September 2004 and the company’s market capitalisation at 14 August 2008 was £431 million.