Payzone & SVP partner to support people struggling with their energy bills

At the height of the energy crisis in autumn 2022 - with donations totalling €1.5m from SSE Airtricity & Bord Gais Energy - St Vincent de Paul (SVP) approached Payzone to create and develop an Energy Voucher scheme to aid those struggling with their energy bills. 

The vouchers could be handed out by SVP Volunteers and given to members of their local community to pay electricity or gas bills or to top up pay as you go electricity or gas meters.

Enhancing accessibility with Payzone

To support this initiative Payzone developed redeemable Energy Vouchers that can be scanned by the retailer’s terminal or till system using Payzone’s payment technology. This improved ease of access for those in receipt of a voucher, allowing them to use it at anyone of Payzone’s network of 3,500 retailers. 

Expanding the program

The initiative was so successful and so well received that Payzone and St Vincent de Paul expanded it in early 2023 to allow individual SVP conferences to purchase and distribute their own Energy Vouchers to continue to aid their local community. Payzone provides all aspects of this service – we take in the orders and payments, arrange for the creation of unique barcodes, print the barcodes on energy voucher cards and ship them out to the individual conferences for onward distribution and redemption. 

Impact and community support

Payzone are pleased to be able to leverage our payment technology in order to support Energy Vouchers and Payzone retailers have fully embraced the initiative as another way to help their local community members, particularly during the current economic climate. 

To date, Payzone has created and distributed Energy Vouchers worth €4.7 million, helping to support thousands of people in the Republic of Ireland.