PayPoint, one of the UK’s best known and most used bill payment networks, has today announced the ten regional short listed finalists who are playing it out to win the overall ‘2007 PayPoint Corner Shop of the Year’ Award.

The competition received over 5,000 nominations during the three week nomination period* and is a huge credit to nominees, who are held in high esteem by their grateful customers.  These nominations all clearly demonstrate how integral the local convenience store is to the nearby community, not only because of the immense array of products and services they offer, but because of the friendly and helpful service the stores provide throughout day and night.

The nominations were whittled down to ten regional short listed finalists:

• Northern Ireland - Day Today Stores, Londonderry
• East Anglia - Somerfield Stores, Norwich
• Midlands - Balfour Stores, Burton-on-Trent
• North East - Mill Hill Newsagents, Sunderland
• North West – Goblets, Moston, Manchester
• Yorkshire - Holderness News, Hull
• Scotland - The Corner Shop Spar, Motherwell
• South East & London - Anrish Newsagents & Off Licence, Reading
• South West - Bishop Sutton PO Stores,  Bristol
•  Wales – C&M News, Cardiff

The overall winner will be announced during week commencing 23^rd April 2007 after all short listed finalists have been judged on going beyond the call of duty to serve their local community.

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

“All ten regional short listed finalists were able to demonstrate that they are a lifeline in their local community and certainly deserve their place in the short list. It’s also a credit to the businesses that they were strongly backed by their patrons.”

The face of the campaign, Sarah Jayne Dunn, plays well known soap character Mandy Hutchinson from Channel 4’s Hollyoaks, co-owner of Drive ‘n’ Buy and the launderette and will take part in the winner’s photo call.

- Ends -

For more information on the competition or images of Sarah Jayne Dunn please contact:

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

Notes to Editor:
* 19 March to the close date of 6 April 2007

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.