News Article Royal Mail launch new 2015 PAF licence

On the 1st April 2015, Royal Mail will implement a new licence agreement for the use of their Postcode Address File (PAF®), the database of 29 million business and residential addresses to which mail can be delivered.

All of our addressing solutions — which use PAF® for the purpose of looking up new addresses — will be licensed under the new terms from April 2015.

The 2015 PAF® licence is shorter and clearer than the current one, and introduces several changes including:

• Transaction; any type of PAF® lookup (with no distinction between internal lookups performed by staff and external ones performed on public websites)
• User; an individual person with access to PAF® (rather than a individual workstation with access to it)
• Organisation Use; an annual royalty fee that covers all PAF® use within an organisation
• High Use; an annual royalty fee that covers up to 10M Transactions, and another fee for 10M+

Royal Mail signalled their intention to review and simplify the PAF® licence in 2012, two years after they released the current version.

In 2013, they undertook an extensive consultation exercise with PAF® customers, solutions providers like us and the independent PAF Advisory Board. Royal Mail announced the new PAF® licence in April 2014.

In preparation for April 2015, our account management team is continuing to raise awareness with those of our customers that are affected.

The implementation of the new PAF® licence coincides with the launch of a Public Sector Licence (PSL) agreement between Royal Mail and the UK and Scottish Governments.

The PSL agreement represents a significant price cut for our public sector customers, since the royalty fees associated with using PAF® will be paid-for through a single annual payment from the two governments.

For further advice on any of these changes, call our team on 01508 494488 or send them a message.