Insurance, energy, satellite TV and mobile phone companies opt for PayPoint

PayPoint has extended its bill payment services in retail outlets across Romania with new partnerships with Allianz Tiriac Asigurari, ENEL Energie, the local subsidiary of Italian energy group Enel, E.ON Gaz Romania and E.ON Moldova Furnizare, both part of German group E.ON. PayPoint has also announced the extension of its prepayments contracts in Romania with UPC Group for its digital satellite television service, Focus Sat, and Zapp, the mobile telecom network.

Allianz Tiriac Asigurari is PayPoint’s first insurance client in Romania, marking an important diversification of its client base. Allianz Tiriac Asigurari provides insurance cover in all the important insurance segments – car, household goods, liability, life and health – and its customers can now pay their premiums for any of its policies through PayPoint outlets throughout Romania.

The new energy bill payment services cover:

• ENEL Energie customers for electricity in the counties of Timis, Hunedoara, Arad, Caras-Severin, Constanta, Tulcea, Calarasi, Ialomita, Dobrogea and Banat;
• Electricty and gas customers respectively of E.ON Moldova Furnizare and E.ON Gaz Romania in the counties of Bacau, Botosani, Iasi, Neamt, Suceava and Vaslui counties.

The new pre-paid communications services cover:

• Digital tv satelite provider, Focus Sat, by enabling Focus Sat customers to recharge their vouchers for the desired tv package in PayPoint outlets. The new partnership extends the breadth of PayPoint’s electronic pre-pay charging services in Romania;
• Mobile phone network, Zapp’s prepaid service, marketed as NoPay, which was launched in early December 2008.

”We are are very pleased with the progress we have made in rolling out our bill payment service for Romanian consumers in just a few months since our launch,” said Mugur Dogariu, Managing Director of PayPoint’s Romanian operation. “The reception we’ve had from partners, especially among large local utilities and services providers, has justified our confidence in launching the PayPoint system in Romania, while both consumers and retailers have taken it on board in large numbers.”

PayPoint was the first purpose-built network of its kind in Romania, enabling consumers to pay household bills issued by different utility and service companies at the same retail outlets where they purchase their regular consumer goods. This saves people significant time without any additional cost to them. PayPoint currently operates a network of 1,200 branded terminals nationwide and expects to grow the network by a further 800 new terminals by March 2009.

ENDS...

Notes to Editors
PayPoint in Romania is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PayPoint plc, the leading cash and internet payments company in the UK and Ireland.  It offers complete electronic mobile prepaid SIM card recharging services for all the mobile networks (Cosmote, Orange, Vodafone and Zapp) through its Pay Store network of 4,700 terminal outlets across Romania, electronic prepayment services for operators of phone cards with internet and international access such as EasyComm, UPC, Nobel and Worldtelecom (Number One), and the new bill payment service, with 1,200 PayPoint branded sites.

PayPoint in the UK 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 of over 20,750 terminals located in local shops in all parts of the UK and Ireland handles 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.
• Additional multiple retailer connections via retailers’ electronic till systems, for mobile top-ups and selected payments from the PayPoint range;
• The PayPoint ATM network, with 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. 

PayPoint plc floated on the London Stock Exchange in September 2004.