- Third of a million people expected to run short of power on Christmas Day -

With the long Christmas and New Year bank holidays almost upon us, the last thing on many peoples’ minds will be making sure they don’t run out of gas or electricity at the crucial moment. Thankfully, help is at hand if they do as the majority of PayPoint shops will be open during the festive period, allowing people up and down the country to top up their meters.

“The best way to ruin the big day is for the heating to go off or not being able to cook,” says Peter Brooker of PayPoint. “However, it doesn’t have to be a total disaster as you’ll still be able to top up at many of the 22,500 PayPoint retailers in local newsagents, corner shops and convenience stores over Christmas and New Year. Most other shops will be closed for four days at Christmas because this year it falls on the weekend.

“In fact, last year, PayPoint took nearly 3 million payments on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day¹, and 1.6 million of those were for gas or electricity prepayments – with 330,000 of those on Christmas Day itself.”

Most of the 22,500 PayPoint outlets around the country will be open outside the official bank holidays, with many open on some, if not all, of them, as well as the Christmas and New Year weekends. So people will still be able to pre-pay their gas and electricity keys, top up their mobile phones and make other payments, despite the extra days when other places to top up will be closed.

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

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

“The run up to Christmas is always frantic, so it’s easy to forget to make sure you top up your utility meters ahead of the holiday. But there’s no reason to panic if you do run out – because PayPoint retailers are at the heart of their communities, providing a local service to their customers when no-one else is there for them.”

PayPoint outlets are identified by the distinctive yellow and purple PayPoint logo outside local convenience stores – you can use any of them to make your payments – and if the shop you usually use is closed, you can find another nearby store at http://www.paypoint.com/locator.aspx.

¹ Measurement period from 5.00pm on Christmas Eve to 9.00am on 27 December and from 5.00pm New Year’s Eve to 9.00am on 2 January 2009

- ENDS -

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

Robin Granger / Katie Buckett
Brands2Life
020 7592 1200 / 07940 422 931 / 07832 286400
PayPoint@Brands2Life.com

Notes to Editors

ABOUT PAYPOINT

PayPoint is a leading international provider of convenient payments and value added services to major consumer service organisations in the energy pre and postpayment, housing, water, telecoms, media, financial services, transport, retail, ecommerce, gaming and public sectors.

PayPoint deliver payments and services through a uniquely strong combination of local shops, internet and mobile distribution channels and handles over £10 billion annually from almost 570 million transactions annually for more than 6,000 clients and merchants.

Retail networks
The PayPoint branded retail network in the UK numbers over 22,000 terminals located in local shops (including Co-op, Spar, McColls, Costcutter, Sainsbury’s Local, One Stop, Londis and thousands of independents). Collect+, a joint venture with Yodel, formerly Home Delivery Network Limited, provides a parcel collection and drop off service at more than 3,400 PayPoint retailers. Its ATM network numbers more than 2,400 ‘LINK’ branded machines across the UK, mainly in the same sites as PayPoint terminals.

In Romania, the branded retail network numbers over 5,000 terminals located in local shops, processing cash bill payments for utilities and mobile phone top-ups. In Ireland, over 500 outlets in shops and credit unions process mobile top-ups and bill payments.

Internet
PayPoint.net is an internet payment service provider linking into all major UK acquiring banks to deliver secure online credit and debit card payments for over 5,500 web merchants. It offers a comprehensive set of products ranging from a transaction gateway through to a bureau service and FraudGuard, an advanced service to mitigate the risk of fraud.

PayByPhone
PayByPhone is a leading international provider of services to parking authorities allowing consumers to use their mobile phones to pay for their parking by credit or debit card. It has contracts in the UK, France, Canada and the USA.

PayPoint is widely recognised for its leadership in prepayment systems, smart technology and consumer service.