PayPoint is increasing its support for parcel, electronic voucher and cash-out schemes, as it continues to diversify away from cash-bill payment services in stores.
Speaking to Better Retailing during the company’s financial results for the six months ending 30 September 2022, PayPoint chief executive Nick Wiles revealed the company was “rebalancing towards growth opportunities”. Explaining what this looks like for retailers, he said: “What we most want is a retailer that offers everything on the menu.
“Cash-bill payments is at a place where it’s not growing and we want retailers who offer more than that. We want to work with high-quality independent retailers that have an appetite for parcels and electronic money alongside cash bill payments as well.
“Retailers can earn the most money from those services and we want to make it worthwhile.”
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Last month, PayPoint announced plans to acquire Appreciate Group, which would give retailers an opportunity through the sale of shopping vouchers. It also launched the PayPoint Counter Cash service last year, addressing issues around access to cash by allowing customers to withdraw up to £50 from a PayPoint store.
PayPoint finance director Alan Dale told Better Retailing that a cash-float service was available to ensure retailers can offer Counter Cash, following success with similar support to stores in Derby last month. “We had lots of engagement and it has worked really well. Some wanted it, while others had such good cash flow they could absorb it and were happy it was helping them get rid of cash,” he said.
Dale added that PayPoint has also been using store analysis to help determine the best times for stores to receive a cash float. “The last thing we want is for stores to run out of money when they have a vulnerable customer who wants to use the service. We have a tremendous amount of data available and we’ve done a lot of work to determine what the optimal times of day are for withdrawing cash,” Dale said.
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The half-year results revealed that net revenue from continuing operations was up annually from £56.1m to £59.5m. During the period, profit before tax fell annually from £55m to £21m.
PayPoint said the drop was “largely due to the profit on disposal of £30m for the Romanian business received in the first half of 2022”.
Net revenue for PayPoint’s e-commerce division, which includes parcel services, rose from £2.1m to £3m during the six months, while payments and banking revenue increased from £24.2m to £25.7m.
Independent retailers made up 19,000 of PayPoint’s 28,000 store network during the financial period, representing growth of nearly 3%.
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