Pennies, the electronic charity box, is an innovation in the charitable sector that harnesses retail payments technology to make it easy, affordable and secure for consumers to give pennies to charity as they shop and pay by card. If half of the UK’s card-holders gave 8 pence a week in this way an additional £89 million a year could be raised every year.
1. Pennies, the electronic charity box, launches nationwide today with its first retail partner, Domino’s Pizza. From today Domino’s customers who buy pizza on-line and pay by card will have the option to round their bill up to the nearest pound and give their change to UK charities*. Another national on-line retailer is on course to launch before Christmas and plans are well advanced for other retailers to follow in the New Year.
2. It is also announced that The Pennies Foundation has joined forces with Smart Technology Solutions (STS) and YESpay International (YESpay) to extend the Pennies proposition to retailers served by YESpay that operate both in-store and on-line. This collaboration will make it simple for these retailers to switch the Pennies capability on. The Pennies Foundation, a UK registered charity, has been working since 2009 to create Pennies, the electronic charity box. This new channel is designed to raise additional funds for UK registered charities. It gives shoppers the choice of donating their electronic change in private at the touch of a button when they shop in-store or online. The Pennies Foundation then adds these small individual donations together and distributes the full content of the electronic charity box to designated UK charities. This simple idea has been turned into reality and will be developed further thanks to the support of a range of companies including a number of key technology partners. These include STS and YESpay, who have been instrumental in the development of a technical solution that will allow shoppers to donate their pennies both easily and securely.
Working together, YESpay and STS are developing a bespoke solution for launch in January 2011 that will make it as simple as 1, 2, 3 for YESpay retailers to implement Pennies. All it will take is for retailers to: switch on the Pennies application; choose the charity to benefit from the majority of the funds collected through their outlets and then to tell their customers using the Pennies marketing collateral.
STS is using their payments expertise to design and develop a software application that provides a simple and easy process to donate money when paying by card. The ‘Pennies solution’ uses the Chip and PIN technology already available at the point of sale.
YESpay is in the process of incorporating the ‘Pennies solution’ into their overall payments software supplied to partners and merchants. The additional functionality will enable retailers to implement Pennies both in store and on line when processing debit and credit card transactions. YESpay will promote Pennies to its wider partner community to extend the range of retailers that are ‘Pennies enabled’.
Steve Turner, CEO of STS said: “STS is extremely proud to be part of the Pennies initiative. We believe that social responsibility should be a key area for businesses and supporting responsible charities is a great way of doing this. We are a technology company and it has been very satisfying to apply our technical skills in pioneering a solution with The Pennies Foundation that can benefit multiple charities”.
Chandra Patni, CEO of YESpay International commented: “It is a pleasure to be able to assist The Pennies Foundation in the development of the electronic charity box. It is a great way to engage consumers in making donations of as little as a few pennies that will nonetheless make a big difference for those in need. We are very excited to be part of this proposition as a key technology partner and we are committed to support the Pennies Foundation in its efforts for a successful launch."
Alison Hutchinson, CEO of The Pennies Foundation, said: “Pennies is all about making giving to charity easy, affordable and secure for the public and raising new funds for multiple charities. Technology partners like YESpay and STS have worked at the very core of the proposition development. We are grateful for their commitment and focus on making Pennies happen. Thanks to their payments software expertise, we can now offer shoppers the ability to donate their electronic change to charity at the single touch of a button, whether on the Chip and PIN machine in-store or the mouse on-line. We have already gone live on-line and are working with a number of other retailers interested in launching Pennies. From January the solution from YESpay and STS will make this simple for many retailers.”
For information please contact:
The Pennies Foundation
Hilary McVitty
hilary(dot)mcvitty(at)pennies(dot)org(dot)uk
07507 837 326
STS
Cristine de Paula
cristine(dot)depaula(at)stspayments(dot)com
07912209919
YESpay
Antonia Mitsana
antonia(dot)mitsana(at)yes-pay(dot)com
0871 221 9510 ext 227
Notes to Editors:
1. The relevant software developments for the Domino’s launch were completed by Vexed Digital. For more information, please visit: http://www.vexeddigital.com/ .
2. Of the funds raised thanks to the donations of Domino’s customers, 75% will benefit UK charity Special Olympics GB, the country’s largest provider of sports training and competitions for people with learning disabilities. The remaining 25% will be distributed to a number of other UK charities of different sizes, including RNIB, NSPCC, Macmillan Cancer Support and The Princes Trust. All the charities are working to improve the lives of people in the UK. Details of all the charities being supported can be found at http://www.pennies.org.uk . About STS
STS is a forward thinking independent software house, specialising in innovative global payments solutions. STS’ award winning product, Emvelink is the world's leading software based EMV Level 2 kernel. Emvelink is presently used by approximately 40% of the top UK retailers in 120,000 POS and also projects in 16 countries across Asia-Pacific, North America and Europe.
STS software includes EMV, Mobile EPOS and Contactless solutions. STS' flagship product, G8way, is a software application which operates as an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) Client for Payments systems and any other transaction types initiated by EMV card technology. It can be installed locally or remotely and manages the messages between a PIN pad terminal device and a payment engine, switch and/or EFT application.
STS solutions are switch and acquirer independent, allowing retailers to make the best decisions for their business and automatically have a choice of 30+ PIN pads for fixed, kiosks, self-checkout and mobile environments to offer. STS unique payments market knowledge and exposure to global payments markets enable us to provide an unrivalled consulting offering.
About YESpay International Limited
YESpay, a global card payments service company, provides highly secure Internet, EMV Chip & PIN, contactless and gift card payment processing services to independent and multi-chain merchants. Through EMBOSS™, the YESpay Managed Payment Service, merchants can quickly accept integrated card payments within EPOS, kiosks, hospitality and e-commerce systems with minimal capital investment and low on-going services costs.
EMBOSS is an on-line IP-based payment processing service that has been generically pre-accredited by major Card Acquirers in Europe and North America (including Chase Paymentech, First Data Merchant Service (FDMS), Barclaycard Business, HSBC, HBOS, Lloyds Cardnet, Streamline, Ulster Bank, Elavon, PBS, Amex and Diners).
In addition, the YESpay EMBOSS service is fully end to end certified to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) Level 1 as mandated by Visa and MasterCard. The YESpay EasyV-Suite of card payment products is innovative and cost-effective for EPOS, Kiosk, Hospitality, Mobile and Internet environments. With the YESpay EMBOSS card payment service, merchants can perform card payments in both card-present and card-not-present environments.
About Vexed Digital
Vexed Digital is a full service independent digital agency based in London. They work with clients across all digital platforms from devising multi-channel e-commerce strategies and implementing them, through to extending brand activity into the social space and building service led branded communities. Their mobile expertise dates back to the early days of WAP and now encompasses strategy and development for iPhone / iPad and Android.
Vexed was one of the first agencies to specialise in the social web and today continues to innovate across all digital channels, most recently mobile e-commerce. It has considerable strategic and technical experience and is able to simplify big, complex projects. Vexed has worked with Dominos Pizza's UK for five years and developed its groundbreaking iPhone app (shortlisted for the Revolution and NMA Awards), Foursquare campaign and other aspects of its digital strategy.
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