Worldpay staff at the ready, as the UK gears up for Comic Relief

London 22 March 2017 – Over 100 volunteers from Worldpay’s call centre in Gateshead will give up their evening this Friday to man the phones for Comic Relief, taking thousands of telephone donations from across the country, and processing millions of pounds from generous donors throughout the evening.

Staff at the call centre will be taking calls from 7pm on Friday evening until midnight. Colleagues from across the business will also take part in a range of fundraising projects happening in offices around the UK.

As a Primary Payment Service provider for Comic Relief, Worldpay process a wide network of web and call centre donations for free via Comic Relief’s Online and BT’s MyDonate platforms, ensuring more cash flows directly to the charity. During its 12 year relationship with Comic Relief, Worldpay has processed over £235 million (a fifth of all donations) destined for a range of good causes in the UK and internationally.

Comic Relief uses a variety of Worldpay solutions, specifically designed to cope with high volume and velocity transaction peaks, reaching as many as 200 transactions per second as donations flood in.

James Frost, UK CMO, Worldpay, said: “This is a very special event which raises lots of money for charities both here and abroad. We are proud to be able to support the work of Comic Relief by offering our gateway, acquiring and customer support services free of charge.

“This is the second year our call-centre staff in Gateshead have volunteered their time to support this amazing charity. During last year’s Sport Relief event we took over £24,000 in telephone donations, managed over 700 calls that evening alone, and processed over £5 million in payments from kind-hearted donors. We’re revved up to beat those figures this year.”

About Worldpay:
Worldpay is a leading payments company with global reach. We provide an extensive range of technology-led payment products and services to around 400,000 customers, enabling their businesses to grow and prosper. We manage the increasing complexity of the payments landscape for our customers, allowing them to accept the widest range of payment types around the world. Using our network and technology, we are able to process payments from geographies covering 99% of global GDP, across 146 countries and 126 currencies. We help our customers to accept more than 300 different payment types.
Worldpay UK has more than 40% market share in the UK and helps businesses of all sizes sell more to their customers by accepting card payments in-store, online, via mail or telephone, and on the move. www.worldpay.com/uk

For more information, please contact:
Harry Ronaldson, Golin : T + 44 (0) 20 7067 0144
Angela Woodward, Worldpay : T: +44 (0)203 664 2605