PayPoint has promised to make its partnered stores the home of click and collect services by bringing onboard three additional courier companies before Christmas 2019.

This includes a promise to finalise one of these in time for the Christmas rush this year.

Speaking to Retail Express, PayPoint CEO Dominic Taylor said: "I think what the consumer wants is to form a relationship with their local shop where no matter the van that carries the goods, they can pick it up in the same place. That’s what we’re hoping to build but critical to that is getting other carriers on board.”

He added that by bringing more parcel carriers into its Collect Plus platform, PayPoint would be able to roll out Collect Plus services into even more if its partnered stores.

“We tend to sign up carriers and then see how we are going to supplement the network to support that volume,” Taylor explained.

The expansion of the company’s parcel services was announced as part of its newly released annual results. UK revenue decreased by 5% to £152.2m caused by slight decreases in top-up, billing and retail services revenues but overall performance was stable with operating profit up across the group by 2.3%.

This was aided by the rollout of its PayPoint One EPOS terminal beating the company’s own expectations, with more than 9,000 sites now live in convenience stores in the UK. PayPoint expects to add 3,400 more PayPoint One systems into stores by March 2019.

The company also gave a “sunset” date for its T2 yellow terminals of January 2020, after which point they will be withdrawn from service.

Taylor told Retail Express that he believes the uptake of PayPoint One terminals by this point will result in no reduction of geographic coverage.

Dominic Taylor also referenced a current trial with Link to explore “A manned ATM concept” where retailers will receive a commission for processing cash withdrawals over the counter through PayPoint.

He added that this could allow shops too small to feature a free-to-use cash machine to still give customers free access to cash.

Challenged on the number of retailers claiming it is not financially viable to process PayPoint transactions via card, Taylor replied: “I’m confident that we are competitive on card services. If any retailer feels that we’re not they should come and speak to us.”

Discussing the recent financial results, the CEO said it represents the end of a two-three year transition back to being a retail focussed business, referencing the end of its mobile and online payments arms in the UK.

“We’re now at the end of that transition phase and pointing in the right direction to grow the way we want to.”

Read more: How this compares with PayPoint's previous annual results

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