LAST MINUTE BRITS PUT CHRISTMAS ON CREDIT
19 January 2009

We all know we have to tighten our belts this year but hundreds of thousands of us are already saving for Christmas 2009.  On the other hand, less than one in five us (18 per cent) makes any serious attempt to save for Christmas, while a massive 71 per cent of Brits admit they don’t save at all in the lead up to Christmas, with 13 per cent stating that they blow their December paychecks and bonuses on all their gifts.

PayPoint, the UK’s leading payment collection network, surveyed over 1,000 Brits and found that only 13% would start saving for Christmas six to 12 months in advance, with most of us leaving everything until the final two months.  Londoners topped the poll as the worst when it came to saving for the big day, making all of their purchases in the final month, many of them on credit card. Not surprisingly, men (18 per cent) are more than twice as likely as women (just 8 per cent) to have a last minute splurge, while over half of women (56 per cent) think ahead and start buying presents a few months before Christmas.

With the UK spending over £18 billion* on presents for Christmas in 2008, it’s no wonder that over 200,000 families have already signed up to begin saving for 2009’s festive season with Park, the UK's leading Christmas savings company, and this figure is expected to rise to over 400,000 families. “Park helps people plan, budget and save for next year,” said Peter Brooker, Head of Corporate Affairs at PayPoint. “Park’s agents can use their local PayPoint outlet to sign up to the scheme and make regular payments when it suits them.“

Gary Woods, Managing Director at Park, comments: “Christmas is a difficult and expensive time of year for many, so our partnership with PayPoint will ensure that saving for Christmas throughout the year is made really easy.  PayPoint has over 21,000 outlets across the UK and Ireland where you can pop in to save at the same time as doing your shopping. On average, our customers save almost £400 over the year, removing much of the worry about paying for Christmas. Everything is delivered in plenty of time for the festivities, giving you time to relax and enjoy time with the family.”

- Ends -

Notes to Editors
* Statistic from ComRes one of the leading polling and research consultancies.  Based on the average person spending £379 (over 18s in the UK – 47,864,300)
PayPoint is the leading cash and internet payments company in the UK and Ireland.It handles in excess of £8 billion from over 515 million transactions annually for 6,000 clients and merchants. The company operates with several payment networks:

  • The PayPoint retail network numbers over 20,750 terminals located in local shops (including Co-op, Spar, Costcutter, Sainsburys Local, One Stop, Londis, Somerfield 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, 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 9 million times a week. The network has 98.9% population cover on a 1 mile urban or 5 miles rural measure;
  • Additional multiple retailer connections via retailers’ electronic till systems in the UK, including BP and Superdrug, for mobile top-ups and selected payments from the PayPoint range;
  • The PayPoint ATM network has 2,150 ‘LINK’ branded machines across the UK, also typically in convenience stores; 
  • PayPoint.net provides secure credit and debit card payments for over 5,100 web merchants linking into all the major UK acquiring banks; and
  • PayPoint International, which operates bill payment and top-up services in Ireland and Romania. PayStore in Romania now has 4,700 terminal outlets including 1,200 PayPoint branded sites for the new bill payment service.

PayPoint plc (PAY:LSE) floated on the London Stock Exchange in September 2004. PayPoint is widely recognised for its leadership in prepayment systems, smart technology and consumer service.

Park Christmas Savings
To safeguard prepayments made by customers, an independent trust has been designed to give consumers added security for their savings. Park are also founder members of the Christmas Prepayment Association (CPA) the new Industry Trade Association. Further details can be found on www.getpark.co.uk

Park customers can spread the cost of Christmas by ordering goods or vouchers from their catalogue and making regular payments into their Park Account throughout the year.  All payments are made by 1st November when all items they have ordered are despatched and delivered to the customers in plenty of time for festivities helping over half a million families to save towards Christmas.