Paypoint plc (LON: PAY) have seen their shares jump on Thursday afternoon after the firm reported a mixed update to shareholders.
PayPoint plc is a British business offering a system for paying bills in United Kingdom, Ireland and Romania.
Shares of Paypoint jumped 3.36% to 1,016p. 28/11/19 14:28BST.
The firm reported that it saw a drop in interim profit, similar to other players in the finance industry such as Non Standard Finance (LON: NSF) and Lloyds (LON: LLOY).
However, shareholders leapt onto the fact that the firm saw its underlying revenue rise on the increased rate of installations on its upgraded payment system.
In the six months to September 30, the retail, mobile and online payment service saw pretax profit slip 5.1% to £24.0 million from £25.3 million the year before.
Profit was hurt by renegotiations of the commercial terms of its agreement with parcel delivery firm Yodel.
As a result of those same negotiations, costs were up 9.9% to £33.2 million from £30.2 million.
Revenue fell 2.3% from £106.1 million to £103.7 million, and net revenue which excludes the commission the company pays to retailers and the cost of mobile top-ups, increased 3.1% to £57.3 million from £55.6 million.
At the end of the period, PayPoint had a terminal in 28,366 UK sites, down slightly from March 31. The roll out of its upgraded platform PayPoint One “continued at pace”, the company said, which increased 17% to 15,088 over the six month period.
The company announced expectations to remove all of its legacy terminals by the end of 2020.
PayPoint One average weekly service fee per site rose 3.3% to £15.50 from £15.00, with total service fee revenue from the new terminals up 32% to £6.3 million.
Executive Chair Nick Wiles said: “I’m pleased with the progress PayPoint has made over the past six months as continued execution against our stated strategic priorities has seen the business deliver net revenue growth and underlying profit before tax growth.
“Whilst the financial performance of the business will be influenced by parcel volumes and continued resilience in UK bill payments over the second half, the progress of the business during the first half, reported today, underpins the board’s confidence that as PayPoint’s growth drivers continue to develop, there will be progression in profit before exceptional items and tax for the full financial year,” Wiles added.
Paypoint concluded by declaring an ordinary dividend of 23.6p with an additionally dividend of 18.4p, giving a total dividend of 42p which sees a 51% climb from a year ago.
In the industry, competitors such as Wirecard AG (ETR:WDI) and Yeepay announced a merger deal a fortnight ago.
