UK Royal Mail PAF to undergo change in its pricing structure
Royal Mail is changing the licence agreement for its flagship data file Postcode Address File (PAF) to make it “simpler and more transparent” for users.
Currently PAF is charged on a per-computer server model as opposed to per-user, which is seen to discriminate against smaller businesses. Royal Mail is proposing to change to a tiered pricing structure based on the number of users of the PAF file.
The postal services company denied the move was intended to raise more revenue from PAF and said that access to the file would be cheaper for some users.
The new licence will be phased in over the next three years. The announcement was made at a Royal Mail AGM in June, with full details of the new prices to be revealed on 1 September.
“We’ve completed a full consultation with current users which found that we needed a more up-to-date licence,” said Jennie Longden, temporary head of address management at Royal Mail. “The licence created 10 years ago no longer met the needs of customers. We’re going for a user-based approach which will be simpler and more transparent, making it easier to enter the market.”
According to Matthew Edwards, IT director at bureau Absolute Intuistic and a member of the PAF executive committee, the new licence was necessary to make a more level playing field for users. “The old licence met the needs of the old world, but now things have moved on. The new pricing structure represents quite dramatic changes to the market place in the last five or six years.”
However, Martin Turvey, chief executive officer of address management software provider Global Address, said that while the principles of the proposal were good, he was concerned about possible price increases for some users.
He said: “If you have some people paying less, that means others will be paying more and there are potential concerns for large users. Anyone with a call centre that has hundreds of seats could find themselves paying more than they currently are.”
