A ten minute stop should not cost someone six months.
PayMyFines exists because of a gap in how council penalties work, and because that gap falls hardest on the people least able to absorb it.
The gap we are trying to close
A council penalty charge notice is designed as a single, all or nothing payment. Pay it in full inside fourteen days and it usually halves. Miss that window and you owe the whole amount. Miss the next one and it grows by half again, automatically, without anyone reviewing your circumstances.
For most councils there is no instalment option for an ordinary driver. The system assumes that if you can be fined, you can pay. That assumption is where the damage starts.
If you have £160 spare, a parking ticket is annoying. If you do not, it becomes a decision between the fine and something else that week, and the cheapest option is almost always the one you cannot afford to take. Six months later the same ticket is a court registration, an enforcement agent at the door, and a set of fees several times the size of the original penalty.
The mistake is not usually the parking. It is the cash flow. We think that is a solvable problem, and that solving it early is worth far more than solving it late.
What we believe
Principles we would rather be held to.
Writing these down early makes them harder to quietly drop later.
Speed is the product
Almost all of the value we can create sits inside the early payment window. A service that reaches the council on day nine is worth many times one that reaches it on day thirty.
The total must never move
Fixed amounts, fixed dates, agreed before anyone commits. A product built to fix debt spirals cannot itself compound.
Say no when no is the right answer
If appealing would be better, appeal. If a free debt adviser would be better, go to them. A signup we should not have taken is a failure, not a win.
Regulation is the floor, not the ceiling
Consumer credit in the UK is regulated for good reasons. We would rather move slowly through authorisation than launch something clever and unlicensed.
Where we actually are.
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Done
Mapped the escalation path
We went through the statutory route a council penalty takes, from the discount window to enforcement agent fees, and priced what intervening at each stage is worth.
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Now
Validating demand, in public
This site is the current step. We are collecting waitlist signups and, more importantly, the notes people leave about their own experience. That is shaping which fines we handle first and what the plan lengths need to be.
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Next
Authorisation and the payment engine
Paying a fine and being repaid over time is regulated consumer credit. Getting that right with the Financial Conduct Authority comes before writing a line of the payment system, not after.
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Then
A small, closely watched pilot
A limited group, one or two councils, and every plan reviewed by a human. We would rather be slow and correct than fast and sorry.
Shape what we build.
The notes people leave on the waitlist are the most useful thing we have. Add yours.