Interim Results for the 6 months ending 30 June 2022

Provident Financial plc (‘PFG’ or ‘the Group’), a leading specialist banking group focused on underserved markets, today publishes its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2022, unless otherwise stated.

Malcolm Le May, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

“I am delighted with the Group’s first half performance. We have delivered growth and returns in line with market expectations and, reflecting the Board’s confidence and our robust financial position, we are recommending an interim dividend of 5.0p per share.

We have successfully repositioned PFG as a specialist banking group focused on the mid-cost and near-prime sectors, increasing the size of our addressable market to some 14m people in the UK.   We are investing in our IT infrastructure to deliver future efficiency savings and broadening our service proposition with Vanquis Personal Loans. CCD is in the final stages of being wound down and the PRA have confirmed that they will review the Group’s capital requirements during the second half of the year.  The FCA has also decided not to proceed with their investigation into historic lending at CCD. We are all acutely aware of the potential challenges that the macroeconomic environment might present. However, we are confident that our increased focus on lower risk customer segments together with our capital strength position us well to withstand the challenges ahead, support our customers and deliver sustainable growth and returns to our shareholders.”

Key financial results

Highlights

Well positioned to support customers and deliver sustainable returns despite the challenging macro backdrop

• Group adjusted continuing profit before tax (PBT) of £54.3m (H1’21 PBT: £63.5m) reflects growth in the receivables book year-on-year and new customer bookings partly offset by the planned increase in central costs.
• Group statutory PBT of £37.3m (H1’21 LBT: £44.2m) includes £3.7m of exceptional costs related to corporate costs incurred centrally and £9.6m of discontinued items related to the continued wind-down of the Consumer Credit Division (CCD).
• At the end of June, the Group held Common Equity Tier 1 of approximately £460m (H1’21: £585m), which equated to a CET1 ratio of 27.3% (H1’21: 32.5%) and total capital of approximately £660m (H1’21: £585m) equating to a Total Capital Ratio (TCR) of 39.2% (H1’21: 32.5%). The increase in total capital year-on-year reflects the statutory performance of the Group and the issuance of a Tier 2 bond in H2’21, partly offset by the unwind of the IFRS 9 transition on 1 January 2022.
• Total Group liquidity at the end of June stood at approximately £520m (H1’21: £510m) including approximately £430m (H1’21: £280m) held by Vanquis Bank, of which £145m is surplus non-bank funds placed on deposit with the Bank.
• The Board is proposing an interim dividend of 5.0p with respect to H1’22 (H1’21: £nil), consistent with its capital management framework of aiming to provide attractive and sustainable returns to its shareholders.
• In July, the Group was notified by the regulator that it has decided not to proceed with its planned investigation into CCD’s historic lending between February 2020 and February 2021. This has resulted in a £4.1m provision being released as an exceptional credit through discontinued operations in the H1’22 results.
• Following the continued wind-down of CCD, the Group now focuses exclusively on the mid-cost and near-prime segments of the credit market. This is expected to have a positive impact on the impairment and cost profile of the Group. Combined with its strong balance sheet, this is expected to enable the Group to deliver focused and sustainable growth whilst also delivering attractive returns to shareholders.

The credit card business delivered growth in receivables and customers year-on-year with stable delinquency trends

• The Group’s credit card business reported a profit before tax for the first six months of the year of £75.8m (H1’21: £57.0m), driven by receivables growth and active customer spend levels being maintained year-on-year.
• New customer bookings for the period were 105k (H1’21: 93k) notwithstanding the ongoing prudent approach to risk management amidst an uncertain macroeconomic environment.
• Credit card spend per active customer during the period was consistent with pre-pandemic levels. However, utilisation rates are still lower at approximately 48% (H1’21: 50%).
• Customer receivables ended the period at £1,035m (H1’21: £978m) representing growth year-on-year driven by new customer bookings and active customer spend trends improving year-on-year.
• During the first six months of the year, delinquency trends remained stable and, as a result, the annualised impairment rate remained below trend at 3.5% (H1’21: 5.8%). This also represents the work that has been done over the last two years to refocus the credit card business towards lower risk customers on average. This trend can also be seen on the balance sheet, where the coverage ratio decreased by 0.6% to 24.4% during H1’22.

The vehicle finance business delivered meaningful growth in PBT year-on-year

• The Group’s vehicle finance business delivered a PBT for the period of £20.2m (H1’21: £15.5m) driven by higher revenue year-on-year, as a result of the growth in the average receivables book, and lower interest and impairment costs.
• Credit issued during the period increased to approximately £155m (H1’21: £150m) driven by new business volumes and a buoyant pricing market for used vehicles.
• Customer receivables were £598m at the end of June (H1’21: £602m), which is broadly consistent with the level reported at the end of December 2021 as new customer bookings were offset by early customer settlements.
• The annualised impairment rate improved to 6.0% during the period (H1’21: 6.8%) which also reflects the move towards a lower risk customer base on average since the start of the pandemic.

Personal loans pilot phases concluded at the end of June with good receivables and customer growth

• The Vanquis Bank Open Market Loans pilot significantly exceeded internal expectations and saw consistently strong demand from its target customer segment with good new business volumes. The Sunflower Loans pilot phase also exceeded internal expectations but the Open Banking trial ended its pilot phase below commercial expectations despite high brand and customer approval scores.
• As a result, the personal loans business will focus on developing its core offering around Vanquis Bank Loans (VBL) at sub-50% APR. This offering will be supported by the Group’s new IT platform, ‘Gateway’, and work will commence to transition VBL in H2’22.
• At the end of June, the personal loans business had receivables of £42m (H1’21: £16m) and total customer numbers of 24k (H1’21: 16k).

Provident Financial plc has appointed Shore Capital as joint corporate broker with immediate effect, working alongside Barclays Bank plc and Numis Securities.

Enquiries:

¹      Central costs increased during the period to £31.0m (H1’21: £9.1m), owing to an increased level of cost being recognised centrally, including the centralisation of certain costs from the businesses, certain residual CCD costs and investment in the Group’s transformation capabilities towards its target operating model. These investments are expected to drive significant improvements in cost efficiency in the future.

²     Adjusted continuing profit before tax is stated before amortisation in respect of acquisition intangibles established as part of the acquisition of Moneybarn in August 2014; exceptional items and any losses incurred relating to CCD.

³     Adjusted basic EPS from continuing operations is defined as profit after tax stated before amortisation of acquisition intangibles; exceptional items and any losses incurred relating to CCD. Basic EPS from continuing operations is defined as profit after tax before any losses incurred relating to CCD.

⁴      Return on average required regulatory capital (RORE) reflects adjusted profit after tax for the period, excluding CCD, multiplied by 365/181 divided by the average regulatory capital requirement for the period.

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Note:

This report may contain certain "forward looking statements" regarding the financial position, business strategy or plans for future operations of PFG. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this document may be forward looking statements. Forward looking statements also often use words such as "believe", "expect", "estimate", "intend", "anticipate" and words of a similar meaning. By their nature, forward looking statements involve risk and uncertainty that could cause actual results to differ from those suggested by them. Much of the risk and uncertainty relates to factors that are beyond PFG’s ability to control or estimate precisely, such as future market conditions and the behaviours of other market participants, and therefore undue reliance should not be placed on such statements which speak only as at the date of this report. PFG does not assume any obligation to, and does not intend to, revise or update these forward-looking statements, except as required pursuant to applicable law or regulation. No statement in this announcement is intended as a profit forecast or estimate for any period. No statement in this announcement should be interpreted to indicate a particular level of profit and, as a consequence, it should not be possible to derive a profit figure for any future period from this report.