Utilize fits the bill

Gift cards are traditionally popular as Christmas presents but a new version a Cavan man has just launched allows you to pay your utility bills. And with job losses, pay cuts, and last week's tough budget, what better Christmas present that the gift of paying those mounting bills? This time last year Rory McGuigan (28) was walking home in the rain from his job as a quantity surveyor after taking another round of pay cuts. Facing into a bleak Christmas, he thought to himself that the best gift he could imagine getting was for someone to pay his bills - not clothes, a meal out or vouchers for Brown Thomas or HMV - but the gift of having his utility bills paid would be bliss. A year later, this entrepreneurial young man has made the concept a reality and got Mastercard on board to get the project off the ground and the Utilize gift card was born. Rory is running the businesses from an office off Merrion Square, Dublin, and has drafted in childhood friend Gregory Reilly from Lisdarn full-time to help. Gregory's background in IT is a real asset to the business. Speaking to The Anglo-Celt, Rory explained that he needed a company with the reputation and track record of Mastercard to give consumers confidence in the product and make the venture a success. "Consumers need to be able to trust the product and be sure of a secure method of payment and Mastercard can deliver that," he explained. "You can buy a gift card for a shop and in this climate you don't know if that shop is going to be there after Christmas," continued Rory, who is the son of Adrian and Noeleen McGuigan from Carrickane. He also pointed out with 150 utility companies signed up to the card, including the biggest in the country such as ESB, Eircom, Bord Gais, the mobile providers, NTL, Sky... the Utilize gift card is something that can be used by everyone. "The likes of ESB, Vodafone and O2 aren't going anywhere any time soon so the user can be guaranteed the use of the gift voucher," said Rory. In effect the Utilize gift card is accepted by any utility company that accepts Mastercard as a method of paying bills, whether by phone, online or otherwise. "Everybody has a bill that needs paying and people spend so much energy coming up to Christmas trying to think what to get people as gifts. What do they already have? What do they need and what we have here fits the bill (pardon the pun)," explains Rory. He adds that the beauty of the gift card is that even if you're lucky enough to have your bills up to date, they keep rolling monthly or bi-monthly so the card will always come in handy. Last September Rory began researching his idea in the evenings. Eventually it was taking up a day a week and then two days a week. It got to the stage where it was "do or don't" and he gave up the full-time job as a quantity surveyor and decided to "make it happen". He said that too often people have good ideas and don't make the leap to bring them to life and later find that somebody else has done it instead. Rory spent months researching the various gift cards on the market to find out how they functioned and hired two IT guys to help him create the product. Once they worked out the technology required to create one card, his next mission was to approach the massive corporate entity that is Mastercard. He managed to get an initial meeting with Mastercard to present his idea; it loved the idea and agreed to come on board as his partner in the project. So far, Rory has no regrets and hopes to grow the business substantially next year. Rory and Gregory are hoping to expand the idea into other countries throughout Europe, and are also looking at talks with Mastercard with a view to bringing a pre-paid debit card to the market for consumers to pay their utility bills. The Utilize gift card can be purchased at utilize.ie or from 01-2650000. Rory and Gregory are also in talks with a number of large retailers in the country, to get the card stocked in outlets nationwide. If you have a recession busting story, tell us about it; email linda@anglocelt.ie.