Provident Financial, a provider of home credit in the UK and Ireland, has reported a successful H1 2007, with a pre-tax profit of GBP38.2 million from its ongoing UK operations for the six months ended June 30, 2007. This is 19.4% higher than the GBP32 million recorded in the comparable period of 2006.
Peter Crook, CEO of Provident Financial, said: Provident Financial has had a good first half, with Vanquis Bank in particular benefiting from the management actions executed towards the end of 2006 to place it on a sounder commercial footing. We remain confident that Vanquis Bank will trade at around break-even for 2007 as a whole, in comparison to the full year loss of GBP18.3m in 2006.
UK home credit continues to perform well. The restoration of customer and revenue growth over the last 18 months, combined with the benefits of tight credit management and improvement to the arrears processes introduced during 2006, have allowed further investment in new technology and marketing whilst maintaining profits.