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Morses Club sees double digit growth in loan book
Home collected credit lender Morses Club increased the volume of credit issued and its gross loan book both by double digits in the 12 months leading to 24 February, though impairments were at the upper end of guidance.
Total credit issued by Morses, a smaller rival of Provident Financial's Home Credit arm, grew 21% to £174.3m as the AIM-quoted firm posted a strong increase in its gross loan book, up over 12% year-on-year.
Morses' customer numbers increased 6% to roughly 229,000 at the end of its trading year, while the proportion of loans attributable to its 'highest-tier' customers increased 18%, reflecting the "continued improvement in the quality of the loan book."
Growth continued in the Morses Club Card, a first cashless lending product from the company, as over 21,000 customers were now signed up, lifting loan balances to £10.6m reach its books, compared to 10,200 customers and £3.9m of loan balances a year earlier.
Morses, which launched its first online instalment loans product, Dot Dot Loans, in March 2017 in an extended customer test phase, said the new offering was "another step in the company's strategy of developing digital products to build upon its core offering and provide affordable credit to a wider range of customers across the UK non-standard credit market."
On the down side, the firm highlighted that, notwithstanding the significant growth in total credit issued, it expected to report impairments at the upper end of its guidance range.
Paul Smith, chief executive officer of Morses Club, said, "The success of the Morses Club Card and development of our Dot Dot online loans product highlight the market opportunity for new, flexible products to complement our core HCC product."
"We continue to remain confident in our outlook, with further opportunities for growth both within the HCC and the wider non-standard finance markets," he added.
Morses will be posting its preliminary results for the year ended 24 February 2018 on 26 April 2018.
As of 0840, shares had dropped back 0.62% to 136.65p.