Provident Financial, Moneysupermarket, Virgin Money and Citizens Advice in Lending

Provident Financial has reported that adjusted profit before tax fell by 22.6% year-on-year to £115.3m in H1 2017 compared to £148.9m in 2016 following disruption from the migration of its home credit business to a new operating model. Vanquis Bank, Moneybarn and Satsuma are all continuing to experience strong growth. The company also said that customer bookings in H1 from an expanded credit card proposition increased 27% and a pilot loan scheme focusing on credit card customers is progressing well
Moneysupermarket.com research has found that the average loan amount applied for has increased by 3.5% from £8,650 in January 2015 to £8,958 in March 2017, with car and wedding loan amounts increasing by 6.6% and 8.4% respectively. The research was based upon a sample of 3m loan inquiries made from January 2015 to March 2017
Virgin Money has said that there ‘may be some areas of weakness to be navigated’ in the housing market. It added that ‘we remain vigilant about the potential for certain regions to see house price weakness and will continue to manage this through strict application of our existing lending policies and risk appetite’
Citizens Advice research has found that people who remain on a lender’s standard variable mortgage rate after a two-year fixed-rate mortgage term ends face an average loyalty penalty of £439 a year