Susan Gordon, Business Reporter
Audrey Marks, CEO of Paymaster Jamaica, says some 400,000 bill-paying clients use her services monthly. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
Jamaica's largest payment collection company, Paymaster Ltd, says it has given up the management of bill collection operations at Jamaica Public Service's (JPS) offices, suggesting that the business is unprofitable.
JPS, apparently, was unwilling, during protracted negotiations, to hike the fee it pays Paymaster to handle its collections.
"We are giving up the management of their stores," Audrey Marks, Paymaster's principal and CEO, told the Financial Gleaner yesterday. "When we took over the stores it was supposed to be at a certain [cost] and someone else said they could manage it for them at a lower price."
JNBS takover
JPS yesterday confirmed that Jamaica National Money Services, a subsidiary of Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS) will take over the management of JPS in-house collection from March 1, next year.
JPS is the monopoly light and power company, with a customer base of about half a million, a substantial portion of whom pay their bills at the company's offices.
It is estimated that JPS bill payers account for up to 15 per cent of Paymaster's customer base, but it is not automatic that Paymaster withdrawal from the power company's 16 stores will mean that it will lose entirely their customers. Some could choose to use Paymaster's own outlets.
Under its arrangement with JPS, Paymaster received a specific fee from the light and power company for managing collections at its offices, which meant that Paymaster could not impose the $30 transaction fee that it charges customers.
Apparently Paymaster has been unable to turn a profit on its inside-JPS outlets for Marks stopped just short of saying that her company was subsidising the operation.
"Because you can't collect those service fees in those locations one has to ensure that the cost which goes into management is recouped, hence a certain price has to be settled at for the arrangement," she said.
The 10-year-old Paymaster had signalled earlier this year its intention to shift gear to move away from high-volume, low-margin customers to a business model that provided a greater value-added.
