No longer will wealthy tourists have to wait to recoup the value added tax on their purchases as ROCC Computers Ltd of Crawley, Sussex has developed a Unix-based system using Egham, Surrey-based Unify Corp UK Ltd’s Accell 4GL application development toolkit that will enable tourists to receive immediate cash refunds: the system, which runs on a ROCC 2848 WMS/X machine, was developed for Europe Tax Free Shopping of Putney, London, which has an arrangement with retailers that give customers vouchers; these vouchers can now be exchanged for cash at Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester airports and similar facilities are planned for Stansted and Luton by the end of 1991 and Glasgow by January 1992; cash refund transaction data is collected through front-end personal computer applications in each airport and is transferred to the Unify database; up to now, UK value added tax refunds have been made by cheque or credit card transaction.
