PayPoint has converted more than three quarters of its former yellow T2 terminal partnered independent stores to its PayPoint One EPoS system, according to its latest financials.
Its preliminary results for 2018/19 show that 13,248 shops are now using its PayPoint One EPoS system. The company’s marketing director Steve O’Neill told RN that the device was “attracting new customers to the network,” revealing that 1,000 of these stores were not previously partnered with the company.
By April 2020, the company believes it can have 15,800 convenience stores using PayPoint One.
New chief executive Patrick Headon said his focus in the coming months was to find ‘more ways to add value to our retail network’ while also improving the company’s customers service. He commented “There’s been some good progress made, we’re not where we need to be,” adding “we really want to get better in that area.”
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In the parcel space, volumes collected in independent stores that form its CollectPlus network fell 8%, and the overall store network shrank by 302 sites to 7,134. However, the company vowed to grow its parcel volumes and announced three new partnerships to be revealed soon. Headon revealed to RN: “We’re happy to have recently partnered with three of the largest carrier business, two of them are currently working through pilots and we’re scaling them up already, and the third is going to happen before the summer, probably in around June or July time.”
O’Neill also said the company is ready to begin its LINK cash access trial, which will pay stores commission and their reduced banking fees by facilitating over the counter cash withdrawals. The news comes as the company’s ATM network declined by 319 stores, most of which were removed from ‘low transacting sites.’
Despite bill payment transactions falling by 2% year on year and top-up, e-money transactions increased by 11.4%. O’Neill said that the addition of new services to the system and the slower than expected roll-out of smart metres meant: “the market is still looking to hold its own in terms of volumes.” The New CEO agreed, stating: “Access to cash is not an issue that’s going to go away overnight. As some sectors go down we’re finding that challengers in utilities in banks come up and access to cash presents opportunities.”
Group revenues fell by 0.9% but PayPoint increased its adjusted profit before tax by 1.6% and paid shareholders an additional 1.9% ordinary dividends, a move that coincided with a 2.5% increase in the service fee paid by partnered stores. The company said the increase would: “Drive improvement in the average weekly PayPoint One service fee per site.”
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