Coinstar Inc.'s U.K. unit and the payment technology provider PayPoint PLC announced Friday that they are collaborating on a gift card program.
Coinstar E-Payment Services Ltd. said it is working with PayPoint of Welwyn Garden City, England, to place gift card display racks in 17,000 U.K. stores. The cards are expected to become available this year and can be used at PayPoint point of sale terminals.
Mike Igoe, PayPoint's retail director, said in the Coinstar press release that the partnership would let his company "match our processing expertise with Coinstar's proven record in delivering gift card programs" in the United States and Britain.
Coinstar's gift card system lets retailers sell cards at the point of sale or through kiosks. Most of the Bellevue, Wash., company's coin-counting kiosks can be used to fund gift cards; at the end of June, 8,900 of its 14,200 coin-counting kiosks could do so, or fund a gift certificate or electronic payment, according to its second-quarter earnings report.
"This is a significant step for Coinstar's gift card program," Steve Verleye, a senior vice president and general manager of e-pay at Coinstar, said in the release. " With PayPoint, we build on our initial success in the United Kingdom."
PayPoint operates a payments network that U.K. residents use to pay bills, buy mobile phone airtime, and withdraw cash from bank accounts through proprietary terminals at about 20,000 merchant sites.
