It is excellent news that Provident Financial has turned the corner and normal service has been restored to satisfy their customers’ needs. This comes at the same time as RBS announces that it is shutting another 162 Branches across the UK on the wider assumption that consumers will go online.

There will be many more small towns and villages where banking services will have to be provided by the post office, which in many circumstances does not provide the service the customer would like. Home collected credit providers, and other community lenders in various sectors, have provided a service over countless years, and for many, they provide a local service and excellent customer care.

Access to responsible and affordable credit that is priced for risk, provides a financially smoothing effect for many consumers especially in the JAM category, and across all socio-economic groups. The forthcoming FCA Report on High Cost Credit will hopefully reiterate the importance of smoothing and the ‘water bed effect’ as previously stated by Andrew Bailey CEO FCA. Consumers and the Industry will be looking for comfort that smoothing does not disappear by regulatory default, through pandering too much to consumer activists’ (sometimes) unrealistic concerns.

Greg Stevens

CEO, CCTA

9^th May 2018