Summary
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero used PayPoint’s OpenPay solution to deliver a £600 payment to ca. 6,500 itinerant boaters who held a long-term leisure licence without a home mooring from the Canal and River Trust and had not received previous government support for their energy bills. The support was made up of £400 from the Energy Bills Support Scheme and £200 from the Alternative Fuels Payment scheme in recognition of the higher use of alternative fuels by boaters. The scheme ran from 6 September to 6 December 2023.
Challenges
As Continuous Cruisers must move their boat every two weeks, they do not have a fixed address. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero needed an efficient and cost-effective method to disburse the £600 support to those users, for whom the government does not hold bank account details.
Solution
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero chose to use the PayIn and CashOut options which are part of PayPoint’s OpenPay solution, as they offered a secure and convenient way to disburse funds to these customers while minimising the risk of fraud.
PayIn is a unique, cost-effective alternative to cheques and bank transfers, avoiding many of the risks and costs associated with these methods, and removing the need to obtain and store customers’ bank details.
The PayPoint solution allowed the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to issue vouchers electronically (by email or SMS) to a list of recipients, reducing the risk of error and fraud as only the person named on the voucher could redeem it.
With the PayIn online banking option, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero was able to deposit the payment into their verified bank account and have access to the funds within minutes. Customers also had the option of redeeming in person at a PayPoint retailer with proof of ID, to cater for those without access to online banking.
Customers who opted to receive the payment in cash via the CashOut service received a voucher in the form of a barcode that allows payments in cash to be collected by customers in over 28,000 PayPoint stores across the UK. The PayPoint aspect of the scheme took just two weeks to set up, using the easyto-use webportal option.
The results
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero saw over 80% of recipients opt to transfer the payment to their bank account using the PayIn solution, which resulted in positive feedback via social media on how easy it was to transfer the payment.