HTEC unlock £3m boost to charities with customer micro-donations

EPOS, payment and loyalty technology firm HTEC, which is wholly owned by Universe Group plc, is celebrating unlocking an incredible £3M by using the power of customer micro-donations, with fintech charity Pennies.

HTEC’s integration Pennies has enabled two of the largest independent roadside retail firms, Rontec and MFG, to offer consumers the chance to give a few pennies when paying by card or digital wallet.

Benefitting causes as have included Air Ambulance charities, NSPCC, Maggies, Mencap, Diabetes UK, Terrance Higgins Trust and many more.

Jeremy Lewis, CEO of Universe Group plc, said:

HTEC would like to extend a huge thank all of our customers that made this possible. We are very proud of our partnership with Pennies and we are honoured that our customers’ donations will impact so many important causes. We are thrilled to have reached the £3M milestone and we look forward to seeing this number grow through Pennies micro-donations.

Alison Hutchinson CBE, CEO of Pennies said:

Our huge thanks to HTEC for working with Pennies to unlock millions of pounds for charity and growing and encouraging a community of digital giving.

These pennies have a huge collective impact. For example, just 90 minutes of donations at Rontec could pay for a family to attend one of Maggie’s kids’ days, which help children to understand and come to terms with mum or dad having cancer.

Meanwhile, 25 minutes of donations from customers at MFG could mean NSPCC can answer a call for help to Childline.

We estimate that if every UK cardholder gave 35p a week via Pennies – around the price of a ‘Freddo’ chocolate bar in 2019 – a potential £1bn in new income could be raised for charities each year!

Pennies has now raised an incredible £20M for over 400 UK charities – across payment partners including HTEC – and was highlighted in Harrington Starr’s Financial Technologist ‘175 global fintech influencers’ in 2019. Pennies was the only charity to make the list.

Pennies is live across a breadth of 60+ retail, hospitality and service sector leaders across the UK, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, including Rontec and MFG roadside retail outlets, The Entertainer, Domino’s, Boots Opticians, Oasis Fashion, Hobbycraft and Topps Tiles.

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For more information, contact Rob Dyson, Head of Marketing & Communications at Pennies on 020 7600 9286 / rob.dyson@pennies.org.uk.

About Pennies

• Pennies is a fintech charity (registered no. 1122489) launched in November 2010. It runs the digital charity box, the digital upgrade of the traditional charity tin, designed to fit with our increasingly cashless lifestyles. Anyone can ‘feel-good’ give with participating Pennies retailers – by donating a few pence to charity when paying by card or mobile wallet. It’s as simple as a single press of a button or click of a mouse.
• Pennies has enabled an incredible 80 million small change digital donations to date through its digital charity box, raising £20 million in extra income for more than 400 charities, and growing.

About Universe Group plc:

Universe Group, through its wholly owned subsidiaries of HTEC and Celtech, provides some of the world’s leading retailers with point of sale, payment and loyalty solutions.  The Group’s solutions are based on its own proprietary software and are offered out of the cloud on a software as a service model with its data centres processing over 6 billion transactions every year. For further information, please see www.universe-group.co.uk.