Enabling local authorities to provide immediate financial support 24/7, 365 days a year

Family Fund Business Services has met its ambition to deliver digital payment services to its local authority clients, with the help of PayPoint and its innovative cash voucher solution, Cash Out. Over £7.5 million of much needed cash was quickly and easily released to local authorities and their beneficiaries during 2020, as a result of the collaboration between the two organisations. Crucially, customers of local authorities partnering with Family Fund Business Services continue to benefit from immediate access to emergency cash, 24/7, 365 days a year, easing the financial burden of the pandemic.

As the UK’s leading business-to-business fulfilment service, Family Fund Business Services (FFBS) specialises in providing grant making services and related expertise for local authorities, charities, housing associations and other not for profit organisations nationwide. FFBS works with trusted suppliers to provide essential goods and services to those who need it most and all their profits are gifted to their parent charity Family Fund as unrestricted funding. PayPoint’s Cash Out service has been an integral part of its service portfolio since it launched in 2013. In March 2020, orders for cash awards increased dramatically and the need for a more streamlined yet flexible approach to make them quickly accessible was urgently needed.

As a result, plans for its digital transformation were not only accelerated, but achieved with minimal disruption and to maximum effect. Previously manual, time intensive tasks were replaced with same-day automated solutions, such as increasing or decreasing cash funds to meet fluctuating daily requests, and the reissuing of lost or damaged vouchers. These streamlined digital processes not only contributed to improving FFBS’ Helpdesk’s efficiency, but also made the reissue of vouchers much easier for customers.

Jill Wheeler, Managing Director of FFBS, commented: “Our clients and their beneficiaries are at the heart of everything we do, so any solutions we utilise must ultimately best serve them, not just improve our own practices. Importantly, this ethos is mirrored by PayPoint so when lockdown came into force, we were united in stepping up plans to fully digitise our offering and deliver flexible, friction-free payment options.”

Danny Vant, Client Services Director at PayPoint commented: “In addition to providing local authority clients with vital support for their existing pay outs, by working with PayPoint, FFBS is able to offer cash as an alternative to free school meal or winter hardship vouchers. Together, we are also able to help in providing other emergency funding such as cash in lieu of clothing vouchers, which are only redeemable in selected clothing stores. Retailers in the PayPoint network are classed as ‘essential’ and remain open during lockdown, unlike clothing retailers, so local authorities are able to help individuals fleeing domestic abuse immediately, by providing Cash Out vouchers to purchase clothing.”

PayPoint’s Cash Out solution works in real-time to seamlessly enable beneficiaries to receive vouchers via email, letter or SMS, to be presented in any one of the 27,700 PayPoint retailers across the UK in exchange for a cash payment. More than 99% of urban households live within 1 mile of one of these locations, confirming this as a far more convenient option than alternative voucher offerings. Demonstrating the speed at which people can benefit from the service, a PayPoint Cash Out voucher was recorded as having been presented to obtain cash¹ just over a minute from receipt.

Jill Wheeler continued: “Through PayPoint Cash Out, we were able to help to deliver more cash awards in the first six months of 2020/21 than in the whole of 2019/20. Whilst demand for help during the pandemic remains unprecedented, with the help of PayPoint and its digital payment solutions, we continue to support our clients in making life a lot less challenging for their beneficiaries across the UK.”

For further information visit PayPoint Cash Out

¹ Fastest time to redemption was one minute and 20 seconds (issued at 26/10/2020 15:54:41 and redeemed at 26/10/2020 15:56:01) issued by Glasgow City Council