PayPoint, the UK’s leading retail bill payment network, is pleased to announce the appointment of Hugh Arnott as Head of Marketing.

Hugh joins PayPoint from The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) where he has been Retail Services Manager since 2002.  In his role at ACS, Hugh was responsible for the growth of its membership, as well as developing services available to members.  Whilst at ACS, Hugh also ran a range of events sharing best practice among retailers.

Before joining ACS, Hugh was previously Channel Marketing Manager for Camelot, where he aided in the launch of Camelot’s 10,000 terminals in November 1994 and the development of in-store marketing and convenience specific strategies.

Hugh comments: “I am delighted to be working with PayPoint and hope to add some benefit to the excellent existing team with my knowledge and understanding of smaller format store retailing.

He continues:  “I look forward to becoming part of the PayPoint team, and am joining at a time of sustained growth with recent acquisitions and many more exciting new plans in the pipeline.” 

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Enquiries:
PayPoint Press Office
Helen Crossley and Jenine Creaney
020 7553 4111
helen.crossley@mischiefpr.com / jenine.creaney@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.