The Financial Ombudsman (FOS)'s latest quarterly statistics, published on 25 August 2020, highlighted a rise in the number of complaints received about some types of high cost credit. In the period April-June 2020, new complaints about home credit rose by 77% to 1,166. Provident is the major lender in the home credit market, also known as doorstep lending. When Provident published its results … [Read more...]
A template letter to ask for a refund from Provident – how to to use this
If you had doorstep loans from lender such as Provident, you may be able to get a refund of the interest you paid if the lender should have realised the loan was unaffordable for you. Doorstep lending - also called home credit - is where a collector comes to your house to collect the repayments. Doorstep loans are used by over 1.3 million people in Britain. Many people have been borrowing … [Read more...]
A takeover bid for Provident (PFG) by much smaller NSF
Non Standard Finance (NSF) made a surprise bid for the much larger Provident Financial Group (PFG) in February 2019. The bid was eventually withdrawn by NSF in June 2019. Every debt adviser will be familiar with "the Provvy" but it's interesting to take a look at the two companies and their respective brands - they cover most sorts of high cost, bad credit lending in the UK. NSF's … [Read more...]
FCA’s consultation on home-collected credit, catalogue credit & store cards
This article has my proposed responses to some of the FCA's questions in its Consultation on High Cost Credit 18/12. I'll be sending them in next week. (My comments on the two FCA questions with an earlier deadline are here: Introducing a cap on the cost of Rent To Own lenders such as Brighthouse.) Rent to own Q3: Do you agree with our proposals for a point of sale ban on extended … [Read more...]
Provident – home credit crisis & FCA investigates Vanquis
On 22 August 2017, Provident Financial's share price dropped c 70% after a profits warning. For a FTSE 100 company such large price moves are extremely rare. The Daily Mail shrieked: Provident Financial goes into meltdown ... now 800,000 customers of its doorstep collection business are at risk. Provident's doorstep lending re-organisation Provident's doorstep loans used to be … [Read more...]