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Since 2017 Purchase Direct has committed to make a fixed charitable donation each month to Save the Children, which this month has reached the grand total of £120,000.  As a business, we are pleased to be able to provide continued financial support for vulnerable children in the UK and around the world – and it’s thanks to the hard work from all our staff which enables us to make this contribution.

Alicia Wiltshire, Senior Regional Corporate Manager at Save the Children, commented: “Thank you so much for the incredible generosity and compassion Purchase Direct have shown through their support, reaching an incredible milestone of £120,000. To put this into context, this could help over 375 families survive the winter with warm clothes, heaters and fuel.

“Purchase Direct’s donations help children in the UK and around the world get the food, medicine and education they need to make it through the toughest times of their lives, so they can go on to fulfil their potential. It’s with children’s endless energy and the determination of supporters like Purchase Direct, we’re helping create a fairer world and change the future for good.”

Last Summer, the Government announced changes to ESOS (the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme) in its response to the ESOS consultation which had been conducted.

We were delighted to recently donate £3163 to Welwyn Hatfield Women’s Refuge & Support Service, an independent local charity who provide services for women and children who have experienced domestic violence or abuse.

As the UK transitions to a fully digital communications network, with BT Openreach switching off traditional landlines in 2025, now is the time to assess your current communications set up so that you aware of the upgrades required.

We are delighted to announce that we have achieved both ISO 14001 Certification and Carbon Neutrality status in line with PAS 2060:2014.

Raising funds for worthy charities and supporting the local community is important to the Directors and employees at Purchase Direct and we were delighted to recently donate over £1,850 to Hearts Milk Bank.

Purchase Direct has been working with Fix Auto Luton to help them achieve Carbon Neutrality in accordance with PAS 2060 and we were proud to be part of their recent success during the NBRA Greener Bodyshop Awards. 

Purchase Direct has been appointed by BMW Group UK to provide a one-off energy consumption audit for all BMW Retailers and Authorised Repairers in the UK and Ireland.  

Purchase Direct has a reputation for finding innovative ways to reduce the cost of doing business and, after researching the opportunities the new open banking regulations meant for processing payments, we knew we could find a solution to help businesses save thousands on debit and credit card payments.

Our team at Purchase Direct recently supported another worthwhile charity and were delighted to raise the grand total of over £2,100 for Mind in Mid Herts during Mental Health Awareness Week.

With climate change becoming an increasingly hot topic, it is more difficult for businesses to ignore their own corporate responsibility and we have committed to achieving carbon neutrality status, in accordance with PAS 2060. 

Open Banking is the revolutionary way for consumers to pay for products and services, utilising the Faster Payment Service alongside ‘Pay by Link’ technology.

Purchase Direct has committed to a further 10-year lease at our head office in Welwyn Garden City and the 8,935 square foot open plan office is currently undergoing major refurbishment to provide a superior working environment for our team of 90 staff to return to post COVID-19.

Vodafone and Three are following EE’s lead by introducing extra charges for some of its customers using their phones in Europe from next year, following the UK’s departure from the EU. 

Our procurement services are continually evolving as we strive to generate additional cost savings and improved service levels for our customers.   

A new Waste Brokerage Scheme has recently launched through our sister company Outsourced Waste Ltd, enabling us to offer new and improved waste pricing with better controls on pricing, reporting and management information. 

We have been made aware of a text message scam that is affecting Android phones on any mobile network (iPhones are currently unaffected). The scam texts are known as ‘Flubot’ SMS Malware and pretend to be from legitimate businesses. 

Great Britain’s electricity system was the greenest it had ever been at lunchtime on Easter Bank Holiday Monday, reported the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO).

The Targeted Charging Review (TCR) was launched in 2017 to address Ofgem’s concern that the current framework for residual and cost-recovery charging may result in inefficient use of the networks and unfair outcomes for energy users.  The TCR has looked at how electricity network residual charges should be set, for both transmission and distribution. 

Following the Supreme Court decision in June 2020 that Visa and Mastercard’s multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) were restrictive of competition, Purchase Direct and chartered accountants UHY Hacker Young have joined forces with Freeths LLP to create an insurance backed scheme for eligible retailers to seek compensation for credit and debit card interchange overcharging.  

Mobile users are being defrauded of £millions using SIM swap fraud.  SIM swapping provides a way for cybercriminals to gain access your personal data and accounts by hijacking your mobile phone number and having your calls go to a SIM in another device.   

Purchase Direct is celebrating its 25^th Birthday this year having been in business since August 1995.  Back then, most businesses still used BT for their telecom, their local electricity company, British Gas for gas and mobile phones were quite a bit bigger. 

There has been a consistent increase in card terminals being stolen from car dealerships to perform refund frauds. It has been reported that criminals are entering dealerships, distracting the salesperson and taking the PDQ terminal to process refunds.

Credit card firms could face significant damages running into billions of pounds in claims after the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Visa and MasterCard, in favour of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains; ruling that fees the credit card companies were charging retailers restricted competition. 

The team at Purchase Direct have been providing critical support to GP Surgeries by procuring essential PPE for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whilst Purchase Direct is prioritising everyone’s wellbeing, including our staff, customers and suppliers, we’re still working remotely from the safety of our homes.

Oil prices slumped 30% upon opening on Monday 9^th March – the biggest one-day % fall since the 1991 Gulf War. A slight upturn followed, with oil markets settling at a 25% drop for the day.

Following the outbreak of the Coronavirus in China oil prices hit lows of $53, the lowest levels in 12 months, following a 20% drop in the market. This drop in the oil price fuelled the bearish (downward) sentiments in Gas and Electric markets.

TrustFord has again been acknowledged for the 5th consecutive year, for its commitment to environmental best practice in The Green World Awards 2019. 

Purchase Direct recently supported The Outside Project, the UK’s first LGBTIQ+ Crisis/Homeless Shelter and Community Centre, by raising a total of £2,244.52 for the charity.

O2 has switched on its 5G network, the last of the UK’s mobile operators to do so. The network will initially be available in five cities for O2 customers – Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds and London – followed by a further 20 towns and cities before the end of the year. 

Following the drone attacks at the weekend in Saudi Arabia on their largest oil processing plants, oil prices initially surged 20% at the start of trading on Monday with the Brent Crude benchmark seeing its biggest jump in about 30 years.  

The compliance notification deadline for ESOS Phase 2 is rapidly approaching. ESOS is a mandatory energy assessment scheme for organisations in the UK that meet the qualification criteria and non-compliance could result in fines of up to £90,000

We were delighted to raise the grand total of £3,472.14 recently in support of Essex & Herts Air Ambulance and London’s Air Ambulance.

The Climate Change Levy (CCL) is the government’s environmental tax on commercial energy consumption, charged in pence per kWh by the energy supplier.

In June 2017 mobile roaming charges in EU countries were abolished and mobile phone users have since been able to use their minutes, texts and data on their mobile phone tariffs when travelling in most EU countries