Welwyn Garden City, 25 June 2012: As O2 launches its O2 Wallet, PayPoint retailers can look forward to an increase in customers coming into their stores and spending extra cash at the same time they load up the innovative digital wallet service.

O2 Wallet is the new way for consumers to send and receive money, compare prices and shop via their mobile. As customers from any network can apply for an O2 Wallet, PayPoint retailers will be able to load cash into the O2 Wallet of customers from any network coming to their stores.

O2 Wallet offers both a physical and a virtual O2 Money Account Card.  Both are based on a Visa prepaid account with the physical card being contactless, making it fast, easy and convenient.

Seamus Smith, Managing Director, PayPoint UK & Ireland, said: “The ‘virtual’ O2 Money Account Card is perfect for online shopping and, as it’s a pre-paid card and ideal for customers who want greater control over their finances by only putting on the card what they want to spend, they will be making regular visits to PayPoint retailers to top them up.”

“Those of our retailers with PayPoint supplied contactless credit/debit card pin pads will benefit even further as O2 Money Account Card is contactless, which means that users will look out for places where they can use their contactless card to make purchases. Over a third of our network is now contactless, making it one of the largest national contactless networks in the UK.

“This is yet another example of PayPoint working hard to ensure that its retailers benefit from the best and most innovative new products and developments across our markets, so that we can drive more customers into their shops and help them to boost their sales. There are more such opportunities in the pipeline, which I look forward to announcing in the future.”  

Banking and shopping via mobile devices in the UK is growing rapidly. The proportion of people using mobile banking increased from 9.7% in 2010 to 20.4% in 2011¹; whilst shopping on mobile devices is set to increase by 53% in the next 12 months hitting £4.5bn² and making Brits the biggest mobile shoppers in Europe.

ENDS….

Notes:

1. TNS Mobile Life, 2011
2. 2. Kelkoo & Centre for Retail Research

ABOUT PAYPOINT
PayPoint is a leading international provider of convenient payments and value added services to major consumer service organisations in the utility, housing, water, telecoms, media, financial services, transport, retail, e-commerce, gaming and public sectors.

PayPoint delivers payments and services through a uniquely strong combination of local shops, internet and mobile distribution channels and handles over £12 billion from over 650 million transactions annually for more than 6,000 clients and merchants.

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

Retail networks
The PayPoint branded retail network across the UK numbers over 24,000 local shops (including Co-op, Spar, McColls, Costcutter, Sainsbury’s Local, One Stop, Asda, Londis and thousands of independents), where it processes energy meter pre-payments, cash bill payments, mobile phone top-ups, transport tickets, BBC TV licences and a wide variety of other payment types. In Romania, the branded retail network numbers over 6,700 terminals located in local shops, processing cash bill payments for utilities and mobile phone top-ups. In the Republic of Ireland, over 500 terminals in shops and credit unions process mobile top-ups and bill payments.

Collect+, a joint venture with Yodel, provides a parcel collection and drop off service at more than 4,700 PayPoint retailers. PayPoint’s ATM network numbers more than 2,500 ‘LINK’ branded machines across the UK, mainly in the same sites as PayPoint terminals.

Internet
PayPoint.net is an internet payment service provider linking into 16 major acquiring banks in the UK, Europe and North America to deliver secure online credit and debit card payments for over 5,600 web merchants. It offers a comprehensive set of products ranging from a bureau service to a transaction gateway, and FraudGuard, an advanced service to mitigate the risk of fraud.

Mobile payments

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.

ABOUT O2

• Telefónica UK Limited is a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, with 23 million mobile, fixed line and broadband customers as at 31 December 2011.
• Telefónica UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc, a business division of Telefónica S.A. uses O2 as its commercial brand in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 58.1 million customers across these markets.
• Telefónica UK employs around 11,000 people in the UK and has 450 retail stores.
• For further press information about O2, go to www.o2.co.uk/news

O2 WALLET

O2 Wallet uniquely combines the following functions:

• Money Message – enabling consumers to securely transfer money to any UK mobile phone number
• Mobile shopping – a comprehensive barcode and search engine function compares the prices of millions of branded goods from more than 100 online retailers.
• Daily discounts –  unique-to-O2 daily discounts and deals via a ‘My Offers’ icon, including discounts and offers from M&S, Debenhams, Comet, Sainsbury’s, Tesco Direct and Clarks.
• Phone as a wallet – consumers can digitise their existing debit cards to pay for goods and services via their mobile, while keeping on top of their expenditure with texts alerts when the account balance changes.

Regulatory notes

O2 Money Account Card is issued by IDT Financial Services Limited pursuant to a license from Visa Europe Limited.  IDT Financial Services Limited is regulated and authorised by the Financial Services Commission, Gibraltar.  Registered Office: 57-63 Line Wall Road, Gibraltar.  Registered No. 95716.