Ukash partners with Shoprite, making vouchers available in 560 stores throughout South Africa

Issued by Ukash
London, 07 Apr 2010

Ukash, the world's fastest growing online cash-payments company, has signed a deal with Shoprite, to enable consumers in South Africa to purchase Ukash vouchers from 560 supermarkets and hypermarkets.

The Shoprite brand is one of the leading food retailers in South Africa. Since starting out as a small chain of supermarkets in 1967, Shoprite is fast becoming one of South Africa's most trusted brands. The 2009 All Media and Products Survey (AMPS) showed more than 14 million individual shoppers, more than for any other supermarket, frequent its stores and that there is a very loyal consumer base, with 39% of Shoprite's customers shopping exclusively at its supermarkets.

Ukash vouchers will be available in all Shoprite, Checkers and Checkers Hyper stores across South Africa. Every store has a Money Market counter in-store, where customers can buy Ukash vouchers as well as pay their bills, buy airtime and prepaid electricity while they shop.

Consumers can obtain Ukash vouchers conveniently from Shoprite outlets in any value between the minimum R50 and maximum R1 500, which can be split and combined for a more convenient form of online purchasing.

Ukash, which is the world's largest prepaid-cash issuing estate, enables consumers around the world to shop, pay and play online safely using cash. Ukash is a secure payment method developed to protect personal identity and financial information when making online transactions, eliminating the threat of credit and debit card fraud for consumers and repudiations and charge-backs for retailers.

Mark Chirnside, Chief Executive Officer, Ukash, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Shoprite as we pursue our strategic plan to enable cash consumers to shop online anywhere in the world using cash. Opening up the availability of Ukash vouchers across South Africa, where we already have a large presence, means that our virtual cash is one of the most widely available, innovative alternative payment systems offered to consumers in the country.”

Globally, Ukash is available at more than 420 000 physical issuing points and spans 30 countries.

For more information, please contact ING MEDIA:

Seamus O'Keeffe
ING MEDIA
seamus@ing-media.com
Ph: 0207 392 1987

Libby Andrews
ING MEDIA
libby@ing-media.com
Ph: 0207 247 8334

Ukash

Ukash, the world's largest prepaid-cash issuing estate enables consumers from anywhere in the world to shop, pay and play online safely using cash. Ukash is a secure payment method developed to protect personal identity and financial information when making online transactions; eliminating the threat of credit and debit card fraud for consumers and repudiations and charge-backs for retailers.

Established in 2001 under the holding company Smart Voucher, Ukash has grown to more than 420 000 physical points of purchase, and is available in 30 countries around the world. In 2008, Ukash established a strategic partnership with South African payments giant Blue Label Telecoms - part owned by Microsoft, to develop the brand's services.

Ukash is regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) and operates as one of only a small number of Electronic Money Institutions, a status that allows a single maximum online cash payment transaction of up to lb500/EUR750.

Uniquely numbered, Ukash vouchers are available through payment terminals in retail outlets across Europe, South Africa, South America, Canada and Australia and are also issued online from the company's website in selected European territories.

The technology behind Ukash is protected by patents registered across the Smart Voucher database and functionality and is, as such, protected by patent law in all the major economies of the world. Ukash is a registered trademark of Smart Voucher.

For more information, please visit http://www.Ukashbusiness.com and follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ukashbusiness.