Paypoint reports jump in transactions

Paypoint, the electronic payments business, reported revenues and profits up in the first half after strong growth in the number of transactions it processed.

Revenue increased £6m - or 6% - overall to £101.7m, with pre-tax profits coming in at £18.3m, up 15.5%.

A lower tax charge boosted earnings per share growth 21% to 20.2p and the company hiked its interim dividend 17.2% to 10.2p.

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The firm processed 345m transactions in the period, up 18% on the the year before.

This included UK and Ireland retail network transactions increasing 17% overall, with retail services showing growth of 24%.

Prepaid energy transactions increased 19%, helped by increases in prepaid meter numbers and tariffs.

However, its top-ups arm was hit by a decline in mobile top-up volumes in the UK and Ireland of 8%.

The company added that over 11.6m Romanian bill payment transactions were made in the period, up 38%, and the Romanian network continued to grow profitably.

Chairman David Newlands said Paypoint was trading is in line with the company's expectations for the current financial year.

"We intend to pursue further opportunities to enhance UK retail yield and to grow the Romanian retail network, thereby increasing market share in bill payment and retail services in both countries," he said.

"We expect continued progress in the internet and mobile payment channels."

The company said its parcels service had been profitable in the first half of the year, ahead of market expectations, with transactions more than doubling to 3.3m.

It added that Internet transactions were up 22% on the first half of last year to 41m as PayPoint.net added large merchants and grew organically in existing retailers.