An online system to raise cash for UK charities has been launched in Sussex.
Hailsham-based Terry Harvey has developed "donate-as-you-spend" gift vouchers which are sold online.
Consumers can use the gift vouchers, available in denominations of £5 and £10, at major stores and three per cent of the face value goes to a charity of their choice.
Mr Harvey said: "The average amount a person donates to charity is £9.01 each month. This dropped by 50 per cent in real terms since 1992.
"We have set up this system as a way to redress the balance and help fill charity coffers at no extra cost to the consumer."
The gift vouchers have been designed using the latest bank-ing technology with high-quality bank note paper, embedded foil ribbon and holograms for security.
Mr Harvey said: "People usually buy gift vouchers from a store where they already have a shop-ping history. Our vouchers offer a potential avenue to new customers, the online buyers.
"We are working with Park Group, which rep-resents 49 High Street stores including Boots, Littlewoods, Next and HMV.
"We agreed a deal in which the stores pay us six per cent of the voucher's face value for our promotional service. We use the fee to cover basic administration and make the all-important charity donations."
A trial of the service was held in November following a London event, hosted by Frank Bruno and ex-EastEnders actress Patsy Palmer, which introduced the idea to the industry.
The RSPCA and NSPCC took part in the successful early stages which enabled £4,000-worth of the vouchers to be sold in the week before Christmas.
Klare Kennet, South-East regional press officer for the RSPCA, which has its headquarters in Horsham, said: "We do not receive any Government funding and rely purely on donations from schemes like this to raise money for the work we do.
"This is a great idea where everyone sees a benefit and we are pleased to have been involved from the start."
The vouchers have now been expanded to cover all 196,000 UK charities registered with the Charity Commission, which has supplied access to its database.
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