PayPoint, the UK’s leading convenience retail bill payment network is delighted to announce a new exclusive contract with Mills.

The five year agreement with Mills will enable PayPoint to provide a full range of bill payment and electronic top-ups throughout Mills 75 store estate; covering the North East, Cumbria, Yorkshire, East Midlands, West Midlands and South Wales.

This will extend PayPoint’s current relationship with Mills resulting in the addition of 36 busy sites from PayPoint’s nearest competitor. With the whole group of stores exclusively transacting with PayPoint, volumes will double.

John Porrett, Mills Commercial Director commented: “The PayPoint service offers a wider range of payment schemes than any other payment solution provider. Having compared the performance of our stores with PayPoint with those without the service, we realise the importance of getting PayPoint in everywhere to maximise commission and footfall and to strengthen our position in the heart of the community”.

Mike Igoe, PayPoint Retail Director commented: “This new exclusive agreement moves all of the Mills stores into the PayPoint network enabling both our businesses to grow and develop transaction volumes across our large portfolio of clients. In this way Mills will attract new visits to their stores whilst further satisfying the needs of their existing customer base.”

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Enquiries:
PayPoint Press Office
Helen Crossley and Kate Simpson
020 7553 4111
helen.crossley@mischiefpr.com / kate.simpson@mischiefpr.com

Notes to Editors

PayPoint is the UK’s and Ireland’s leading cash and internet payments company, handling over £5 billion in 414 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 terminal outlets  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 over 3,850 outlets including BP, Somerfield and Superdrug for mobile top ups and selected payments from the PayPoint range;
• The PayPoint ATM network has over 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 over £450 million. In year ended March 2007, revenue was £157 million with profit before tax of £27 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.