The competition watchdog has decided not to open an investigation into An Post over its provision of services linked to the Leap Card.

The State-owned postal service has, however, agreed to a number of recommendations made by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) after a complaint from a retailers’ group.

The complaint arose from a contract won by An Post in 2022 to provide a service that allows consumers to purchase and top up their Leap Cards in retail outlets.

Commission

Under the terms of An Post’s new arrangement, retailers could provide such services only if they were agents of PostPoint, a subsidiary of An Post, and only on the terminals supplied by An Post.

The Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association (CSNA) submitted a complaint last year about the amount of commission its members would receive for Leap Card transactions processed in their stores under the terms of the new arrangement.

The group also expressed concerns about the costs of the application process to become a PostPoint agent, and claimed that the terms and conditions requested by An Post were not fair to retailers.

It also complained about the terms and conditions linked to the payment of a refundable deposit for the terminals provided by An Post for topping up Leap Cards.

Deposit waiver

After its assessment, the competition body concluded that it was “unlikely” that there had been a competition-law breach in this instance.

It questioned, however, whether An Post’s terms and conditions relating to a deposit waiver were applied in “a transparent and consistent manner”.

An Post subsequently agreed to a number of CCPC recommendations, including:

• A review and revision of documentation on PostPoint applications and terms and conditions, to make it clear that retailers may apply for a deposit waiver, and explain the criteria for this,
• The process will allow retailers to request a deposit waiver after the payment of a deposit,
• Retailers may request a second terminal, to be assessed based on a business case submitted with the request,
• In the event that a retailer’s application is rejected (either for a deposit waiver or additional terminal), An Post will communicate the reasons why to the applicant, with reference to its assessment criteria.