Trading Statement

16 Mar 2006 07:01

PayPoint PLC16 March 2006 16 March 2006 PRESS RELEASE PayPoint plc Trading Statement The directors of PayPoint are pleased to announce that profits before tax arerunning ahead of expectations. Trading since the half year results wereannounced has continued strongly with growth in all sectors. Bill and general payment transactions and revenues in the year to date are up20% and 26% respectively, over the same period last year. Both bill payment andenergy prepayment have increased due to market share gains, with the latter alsobenefiting from the combined impact of cold weather and energy price increases. Mobile transactions and revenues in the year to date have grown by 20% and 13%respectively, over the same period last year, on the back of market share gainsarising primarily from the continuing roll out of our retail network, which atmore than 15,000 sites, is now larger than the Post Office network. There are afurther 3,000 epos only sites, the growth in which has been held back byretailer development delays. The slower than expected migration of mobiletop-ups from two major multiple retailers from our terminals to their own tillsystems has benefited PayPoint's revenues. For one of these retailers, themigration is largely complete. The other retailer has advised us to expectmigration early in the next financial year. We plan to expand the PayPoint terminal estate by some 2,000 to 2,500 terminalsnext year to service our increasing bill and general payment volumes and tocontinue the growth in our mobile top-up market share. The ATM roll out continues, at a net rate of about 40 per month (similar to thefirst half of this year), and the average number of transactions per ATM hasremained constant, split evenly between cash withdrawals and balance enquiries The new terminal will be substantially rolled out by the end of the currentfinancial year at the predicted cost of £5million, to be depreciated over 5years. We have signed a new 15 year lease on our Welwyn Garden City office, extendingour occupation to the ground floor. Refurbishment, which (including a new highercapacity communications and processing suite) is underway at a total cost of£5million, with completion expected in August. The refurbishment will be partlyfinanced by a capital contribution from our landlord. We have completed a review of our information technology requirements which hasconfirmed the scalability of our core systems. The review has concluded thatefficiency can be enhanced by developing some of the peripheral systems tointroduce greater levels of automation, exception reporting and ease ofoperation together with the replacement of software in languages that may nolonger be supported in the medium term. This will cost £6million, mainlycapital, over three years. We continue to make steady progress in extending our client and retailrelationships and broadening our product portfolio. This, together with theimprovements to our infrastructure and systems, should provide a secure basisfor continued growth for our shareholders. Enquiries: Finsbury 020 7251 3801Rollo HeadDon Hunter This announcement is available on the PayPoint plc website: www.paypoint.co.uk. About PayPoint PayPoint is a leading branded payment collection network used, primarily, forthe cash payment of bills and services and prepayments for mobile telephones andenergy meters. There are over 15,000 retail outlets using PayPoint's paymentterminals. PayPoint began trading in 1996 and initially collected payments through itsnetwork of retail agents for its founder client investors, who included BritishGas, BT, BBC TV Licensing, London Electricity (now part of EDF Energy) and fourwater companies. It now has more than 500 clients including many of the UK and Ireland's majorenergy, cable, mobile and fixed line telephony companies. Its blue chip clientlist also extends to numerous water companies, local authorities and housingassociations and a growing transport and travel base. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange