In doing so clients can also significantly magnify their own corporate responsibility impact by choosing the charities to benefit from the majority of the funds raised.

Pennies is operated by registered charity, The Pennies Foundation, and is independent of charity, cause and channel. Three retailers are already live and more are planning to follow. To date more than 476,000 consumer donations have been made raising over £110,000. Pennies was included as a case study of a successful micro-donation scheme in the Government's recent White Paper, entitled 'Giving'.

The Logic Group, which is providing the payments software within the Point of Sale (POS) and Pin Entry Device (PED), is making the service available to all of its retail customers either on existing or forthcoming PCI DSS compliant payment solutions. This means that top retailers with an enabled PED can present customers with a donation screen and capture the donation data; essentially a product Stock-Keeping Unit (SKU), readily accommodated in most retailer processes.

Capturing the contribution as a 'SKU' also means that donations can be easily identified and settled directly with The Pennies Foundation. The Foundation then distributes the money to the selected charities and obtains feedback over time on how the money is used which the retailer can use to further engage consumers.

Crucially, Pennies does not require cashiers to ask the consumer to contribute - making the offering entirely non-intrusive. Customers are simply prompted on the PED, with no direct staff involvement in the giving process.

"As soon as we were approached by Pennies, we took immediate steps to enable the inventive charity approach it delivers for our customers," comments Paul Russell, Senior Solutions Marketing Manager at The Logic Group. "The development work has been completed and we're looking at going live from the end of June this year. We hope that Pennies will see see a significant b boost in participating retailers and charity donations as a result. Times are tough for charities and research shows that the majority of consumers are receptive to donating electronic small change in this way. As cards increasingly become the de facto means of payment, the kind of spare cash that charities have typically collected in collection tins is decreasing."

Alison Hutchinson, CEO of the Pennies Foundation comments, "The Logic Group was an obvious choice when it came to selecting a payment provider that could deliver Pennies to many more retailers. The ability to simply switch the Pennies electronic charity box on is key; as is ensuring that the purchase process remains smooth and seamless for customers."