New Year heralds new licences for Royal Mail PAF®

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Royal Mail’s Address Management Unit has published new PAF® (Postcode Address File) licences which will come into effect from 1 April 2010.

The new PAF® licences can be found at http://www.royalmail.com/paflicence" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Full details have also been sent to all organisations which licence PAF® direct from Royal Mail.

PAF® contains all 28 million UK residential and business delivery addresses and postcodes. The new licences have been developed following a consultation with existing PAF® users and resellers, and aim to provide a clearer and fairer licence for all users. The price changes being made are revenue neutral for Royal Mail. The changes do not affect consumers who want to check or search for a postcode. This service remains free of charge at http://www.royalmail.com/postcodes4free" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

The new licences offer the flexibility for organisations to choose the most suitable terms of access to PAF® to meet their individual business needs, through a move away from pricing based on the number of systems accessing PAF to user-based pricing - providing greater simplicity and transparency

Licensed PAF® users will be able to buy unlimited blocks of transactions for internal use, with prices for blocks of 100 PAF® based transactions starting from as little as £8, allowing smaller PAF® users to operate on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis. Other benefits include the reduction in the cost per user licence and cuts in the price of data supply of up to 80 per cent.

Royal Mail has been working closely with the PAF® Advisory Board during the development of the new licence. The Board has welcomed changes made such as the removal of some of the previous restrictions on PAF® usage and the reduction in fees for smaller businesses. Royal Mail will continue to work with the Board to assist users in understanding and applying the new licences.

Miranda Dodd, Head of Royal Mail’s Address Management Unit said: "We have listened to feedback from PAF®users and believe the new licences offer a fairer and more flexible approach which reflects the needs of the current marketplace and the wide range of organisations where PAF® now forms the core of their operating systems. In particular, we wanted to make it simpler and more cost effective for small businesses to access PAF®, and also encourage new users, through lowering the entry price for smaller users."

The modern postcode, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, was originally designed to help Royal Mail postmen and women route and deliver mail. Since the introduction the way in which it is used has diversified and grown enormously. PAF® is now at the core of a wide range of systems and solutions which provide the backbone to many industries. In addition to PAF® usage by direct marketing and data capture companies, mail order and online retailers use software built around PAF® to process orders, whilst financial services organisations rely on PAF® to calculate car and home insurance assessments. PAF® data is also heavily used in geographic positioning systems such as SatNav and by national and local government.

Ends

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