PayPoint , a leading distributor  of telecom prepaid services through its subsidiary Pay Store, has launched a national service for the electronic payment of household bills. This is the first multi client, purpose-built network of its kind to be active in Romania. The service has been live now for two months over which time it has been tested thoroughly in the local market. As of now, customers of Romtelecom, Distrigaz Sud, UPC and Zapp can pay their bills at local food stores and other retailers across the country where they see the distinctive yellow and purple PayPoint sign.

PayPoint plc brings to Romania an electronic payments system that has been thoroughly proven having been in use for 12 years in the UK and Ireland. Carefully adapted for the local market, the PayPoint service will benefit the 95% of Romanians who, pay for everything in cash.

The PayPoint network is designed to provide national coverage, with its terminals placed in convenient local stores where consumers can pay their household bills at the same time as purchasing their everyday food and other shopping. The main consumer benefits of the PayPoint system are that it is free, it is convenient (in shops with long opening hours close to where people live) and it substantially reduces the time taken to pay household bills.

“After entering the Romanian market only a year ago, we are proud that in such a short time we have established the basis of a retail network for electronic household bill payments, which at this time is the only nationally enabled service operating in the market. We chose to invest here because the study we conducted showed that the Romanian market is very well-suited to the service offered by PayPoint and has a significant development potential.

We are pleased to be launching a fully functional and accessible system for Romanian bill payers. We have already signed contracts with some of the most important local utilities providers and we will continue negotiations with other utility and service companies in order to provide Romanian consumers with the broadest range of payment capability and at the same time extend our retail network to be close to where those consumers work and live”, Dominic Taylor, CEO of PayPoint plc (PayStore’s parent company) declared.

Besides the electronic payment of household bills services, PayStore will continue to offer complete electronic mobile prepaid SIM card recharging services for all the mobile networks (Cosmote, Orange and Vodafone), and also electronic recharging services to the operators of phone cards with internet and international access such as EasyComm, UPC, Nobel and Worldtelecom (Number One).

“Our system has needed some adaptation for the local market but after exhaustive testing, it is now complete and fully integrated. The system is very easy to use. The consumer simply goes to a local shop branded with the PayPoint sign and hands the household bills to the retailer. The retailer scans the bills using the PayPoint terminal, which connects to the PayPoint centre for transaction processing. After receiving the confirmation of the payment on the terminal, the retailer collects the money from the consumer and hands the customer the payment receipt. It takes only a few seconds. ”, said Lorraine Buhagiar, Operations Director for PayStore in Romania.

PayStore currently operates over 4,000 terminals in Romania and intends to add 1,500 more by spring 2009. Every transaction, bill payment or electronic mobile recharge, is processed through PayPoint’s technical operations infrastructure in UK.