MULTePAY Delivers Boost to Retailers As Mobile Operators Quit Paper Vouchers

MULTePAY will deliver the highest margins available to independent retailers for pre-paid mobile phone top-up sales, as the UKs independent retailers gear up for the withdrawal of paper voucher stocks.Following a bumper Christmas for mobile phone sales, the transition to electronic top-up has already begun, with the withdrawal of smaller denomination paper vouchers by most major mobile networks. Vodafone has announced that it intends to totally withdraw from the paper top-up card market at the end of their current financial year (March 31st 2004) and has recently introduced the TopUp Voucher service (also known as e-voucher) in order to help move all top-ups to electronic methods. According to industry analysts, almost 70 per cent of mobile phone customers in the UK are on pre-paid tariffs, making the UK pre-pay mobile airtime market worth an estimated £4 billion a year, a figure expected to double by 2006. In 2003, MULTePAY announced it was raising commission rates to make the MULTePAY Direct solution the best commission-paying terminal available. Once connected, a MULTePAY retailer can earn up to 5.5 per cent on E-top ups on all five mobile networks, up to 32 per cent on international phone cards and 20 per cent on mobile content, such as games ring tones and logos. The MULTePAY Direct terminal is available to all small independent retailers without the need to fill out application forms or enter into a contract. Together with the wide range of pre-pay products on the terminal and that it is credit card approved for Barclaycard, Alliance and Leicester, American Express and Diners, the MULTePAY terminal is positioned to be the most complete electronic payment solution for the independent retailer on the market. The MULTePAY solution is available through cash & carry outlets throughout the UK, including Makro, Batleys, Blakemores, United, Sher Bros and JW Grays.