PayPoints open for business throughout the May long weekends

With two bank holidays almost upon us (4 May and 25 May), PayPoint is reminding
and reassuring people with prepayment meters that they don’t need to worry about
charging up their gas or electricity ahead of the break.

Every one of the 21,500 PayPoint outlets around the country will be open as normal
over the long weekends so that people can pre-pay their gas and electricity keys with
ease.

In addition, because, the PayPoints are almost all in local convenience stores,
including garage forecourts and newsagents, they are almost all open from early
morning until late evening.

“With our national network, almost everyone has a handy PayPoint which will be
open when other places they might usually use will be closed,” says Peter Brooker of
PayPoint.

“We’re all busy people with lots of things to think about, so it’s easy to let our utility
meters run down. But that’s no reason to panic – PayPoint retailers are at the heart
of their communities, providing a local service to their customers when no-one else is
there for them.

"So keep a look out for the distinctive yellow and purple PayPoint logo outside local
convenience stores – you can use any of them to make your payments – as a result
you can keep on cooking and won’t miss the bank holiday sport on TV!”

For people who have not used a PayPoint to pre-pay for their gas or electricity, or
need to top up mobile phones, pre-paid credit cards or even pay council tax, the
nearest PayPoint can be found at http://www.paypoint.com/locator.aspx.

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Enquiries:
PayPoint Press Office
01707 600356
peterbrooker@paypoint.co.uk

Tom Nutt / Blake Scotland
The Communication Group
020 7630 1411
paypoint@thecommunicationgroup.co.uk

Notes to Editors

• The PayPoint retail network numbers over 21,500 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. 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.

• Running out of gas or electricity over holiday periods is a regular problem for
  people on prepayment meters. On Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s
  Day 2008/09, more than 3 million payments were made at PayPoints, of which
  1.5 million were gas and electricity prepayments – all at a time when no other
  outlets were open for making such payments.