PayPoint, the UK’s best-known and most used bill payment and mobile top-up network, today launches a national search for ‘Corner Shop of the Year’ to celebrate the achievements of the UK’s local convenience store retailers.

Sarah Jayne Dunn, well known soap star Mandy Hutchinson from Channel 4’s Hollyoaks, co-owner of ‘Drive ‘n’ Buy’ and the laundrette is the face of the campaign.

In the UK there are some 30,000 local convenience store retailers, employing around 75,000 employees with an annual turnover approaching £3bn.  PayPoint believes that these retailers are the cornerstone of local communities and play an integral role in the lives of residents.  In the face of ever more intensive competition from major supermarkets, local convenience retailers continue to be at the very centre of community life, offering a personal and local service suited to their customers’ lifestyles.

From today, corner shop customers will have until Friday 6th April 2007 to vote for their favourite and most deserving corner shop by going online and downloading an entry form at www.paypoint.co.uk/cornershopawards.  

Ten regional corner shop finalists will then be announced the week commencing Monday 9th April and will play it out to win the overall title of ‘2007 PayPoint Corner Shop of the Year’ due to be announced on the 23rd April 2007.

The overall winner will be chosen out of the ten regional finalists to determine which corner shop really does go beyond the call of duty to serve its local community.

Dominic Taylor, Chief Executive of PayPoint, commented: “The Corner Shop of the Year Awards have been launched to celebrate the vital role these shops play in their local communities, with their long opening hours, high levels of customer service and the broad range of products and services they offer.

“We understand only too well what an immense difference these shops make to the lives of their customers, from our own network of agencies.  They often provide a lifeline for their local community.” 

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For more information or to enter the competition or images please contact:

PayPoint Press Office
Sarah Treadwell-Jones / Helen Crossley
Tel: 020 7553 4111
Email: Sarah.treadwelljones@mischiefpr.com / helen.crossley@mischiefpr.com  

Notes to Editor:

PayPoint is the UK’s and Ireland’s leading cash and internet payments company, handling over £4 billion in over 360 million payments annually for over 5,000 clients and merchants. The company operates with several significant payment streams:

• The PayPoint branded retail network numbers over 17,500 terminals located in local shops (including Co-ops, Spar, Costcutter, NISA-Today’s, Londis and thousands of independents) in all parts of the UK and Ireland. Terminals handle cash bill payments, mobile phone top-ups, transport tickets, London Congestion Charges, BBC TV licences and a wide variety of other payment types for all of the leading utilities, telecoms suppliers and many consumer service companies. This network is used by consumers, free of charge, over 7 million times a week. The network has 97.3% population cover on a 1 mile urban or 5 miles rural measure;
• Additional multiple retailer connections into the electronic till systems (EPoS) of 3,000 outlets including BP, Somerfield and Superdrug for mobile top ups and selected payments from the PayPoint range;
• The PayPoint ATM network has 1850 ‘LINK’-branded machines across the UK, also typically in convenience stores. These machines levy a small convenience fee for each withdrawal; and
• PayPoint Internet Payment Services, trading as Metacharge and SECPay, provides secure credit and debit card payments for over 4,000 web merchants linking into all the major UK acquiring banks.

PayPoint floated on the London Stock Exchange in September 2004 and was the Financial Times ‘New Company of the Year’.  The company has a market capitalisation of c. £375 million. In year ended March 2006, revenue was £120 million with profit before tax of £20 million. PayPoint has been awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise and is widely recognised for its leadership in prepayment systems, smart technology and consumer service.