Payzone profits up by 10% to €6.3m as company diversifies

Pre-tax profits at consumer payments network Payzone last year increased by 10 per cent to €6.3 million.

This followed gross revenues increasing marginally at Payzone Ireland Ltd from €149.23 million to €150.49 million in the 12 months to the end of September last.

The firm processes a variety of electronic transactions services, including mobile phone top-ups, debit/credit card transactions, M50 motorway toll payments and Leap travel cards.

Payzone services more than 300,000 registered consumers in more than 7,000 retail outlets throughout Ireland, and processes 125 million transactions a year.

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The directors state that they expect the trend in transaction volume and gross margin to continue as the company diversifies further into customised payment solutions.

The company’s profits were hit last year by a €517,000 cost for “redundancy and other one-time costs”.

The business last year paid a dividend of €5.75 million and this followed a dividend payout of €7.5 million in 2017.

Joint venture

Earlier this year, AIB formed a new joint venture with First Data Corporation (FDC) to buy Payzone for €100 million from Carlyle Cardinal Ireland.

The new joint venture is 75 per cent owned by AIB and 25 per cent owned by FDC. The joint venture purchased around 96 per cent of Payzone, and the remaining 4.1 per cent of the business is held by the Payzone management team.

AIB said earlier this year that a mechanism had been agreed to acquire that stake in time.

Carlyle Cardinal Ireland acquired the business from private equity fund Duke Street in 2015 for €39 million.

Numbers employed by the business last year increased by one to 79 as staff costs went up from €4.5 million to €4.8 million.

Directors’ pay last year increased from €623,000 to €652,000, made up of remuneration of €537,000 and pension contributions of €115,000.

The firm made the profit after taking account of non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs of €1.54 million.

At the end of last September, the business had shareholder funds of €1.39 million.