PayPoint’s merchant services business is still struggling. In the year to March 2026, net revenue fell 2.5% as payment volume declined 6.2% to £6.4 billion. The revenue decline comes despite product enhancements including SoftPOS and an improved merchant portal.
PayPoint remains under pressure from the “tap pack” of dynamic POS-focused providers offering modern terminals, slick support and integrated bundles of software and payments to SMEs. Competitors such as Flatpay, SumUp, myPOS, Dojo, Square continue to reshape the UK market. And ePOS vendors such as EPOS Now are now also taking market share in payments through partnerships with Adyen and others.
The pain is most pronounced on PayPoint’s core acquiring estate (powered by Lloyds Cardnet and typically integrated with PayPoint’s EPOS), where payment volume fell 9.6%. Handepay, the ISO acquired for £70 million in 2021, performed somewhat better, with volume down 4.6%. Handepay primarily resells Global Payments’ acquiring services.
Management is now repositioning the merchant services business towards larger SMEs and the mid-market, where it believes profitability will be stronger. Rather than chasing merchant numbers, the company says it will focus on “net revenue, improved profitability and a merchant estate managed for value rather than estate growth.” This is reflected in a sharply improved take rate – up 4bps to 0.52%.
PayPoint has stopped publishing merchant numbers, although management says the business serves around 10,000 merchants on its core estate and a further 20,000 through Handepay.
Elsewhere, the picture is more positive. Merchant Rentals, the terminal leasing business acquired with the Handepay deal, is gaining traction through a new partnership with FreedomPay. More than 1,000 devices are already deployed. Merchant cash advances, provided through YouLend, grew strongly, with loan volumes up 39% to £33 million.
Open banking has begun to make a meaningful contribution following the OB Connect acquisition. Revenues reached £4.2 million, making PayPoint one of the larger UK players in the sector. Management highlighted new business wins including DWP, AccessPay, Gousto and the Insolvency Service.
But overall, these results underline how quickly the SME acquiring market is changing. Legacy providers built around a simple terminal + card acquiring proposition are increasingly being challenged by software-led competitors whose economics and customer proposition look fundamentally different.
