PayPoint plc

Trading Statement

The directors of PayPoint are pleased to announce that profits before tax are running ahead of expectations.  Trading since the half year results were announced has continued strongly with growth in all sectors. 

Bill and general payment transactions and revenues in the year to date are up 20% and 26% respectively, over the same period last year.  Both bill payment and energy prepayment have increased due to market share gains, with the latter also benefiting from the combined impact of cold weather and energy price increases. 

Mobile transactions and revenues in the year to date have grown by 20% and 13% respectively,  over the same period last year, on the back of market share gains arising primarily from the continuing roll out of our retail network, which at more than 15,000 sites, is now larger than the Post Office network.   There are a further 3,000 epos only sites, the growth in which has been held back by retailer development delays. The slower than expected migration of mobile top-ups from two major multiple retailers from our terminals to their own till systems has benefited PayPoint’s revenues.  For one of these retailers, the migration is largely complete. The other retailer has advised us to expect migration early in the next financial year. 

We plan to expand the PayPoint terminal estate by some 2,000 to 2,500 terminals next year to service our increasing bill and general payment volumes and to continue the growth in our mobile top-up market share.

The ATM roll out continues, at a net rate of about 40 per month (similar to the first half of this year), and the average number of transactions per ATM has remained constant, split evenly between cash withdrawals and balance enquiries.

The new terminal will be substantially rolled out by the end of the current financial year at the predicted cost of £5million, to be depreciated over 5 years.

We have signed a new 15 year lease on our Welwyn Garden City office, extending our occupation to the ground floor.  Refurbishment, which (including a new higher capacity communications and processing suite) is underway at a total cost of £5million, with completion expected in August. The refurbishment will be partly financed by a capital contribution from our landlord.

We have completed a review of our information technology requirements which has confirmed the scalability of our core systems.  The review has concluded that efficiency can be enhanced by developing some of the peripheral systems to introduce greater levels of automation, exception reporting and ease of operation together with the replacement of software in languages that may no longer be supported in the medium term.  This will cost £6million, mainly capital, over three years.

We continue to make steady progress in extending our client and retail relationships and broadening our product portfolio.   This, together with the improvements to our infrastructure and systems, should provide a secure basis for continued growth for our shareholders.

Enquiries: 

Finsbury         

020 7251 3801
Rollo Head
Don Hunter

This announcement is available on the PayPoint plc website: www.paypoint.co.uk.

About PayPoint

PayPoint is a leading branded payment collection network used, primarily, for the cash payment of bills and services and prepayments for mobile telephones and energy meters. There are over 15,000 retail outlets using PayPoint’s payment terminals.

PayPoint began trading in 1996 and initially collected payments through its network of retail agents for its founder client investors, who included British Gas, BT, BBC TV Licensing, London Electricity (now part of EDF Energy) and four water companies.

It now has more than 500 clients including many of the UK and Ireland’s major energy, cable, mobile and fixed line telephony companies. Its blue chip client list also extends to numerous water companies, local authorities and housing associations and a growing transport and travel base.