5th Sep 2019 11:47
(Alliance News) - Doorstep credit lender Morses Club PLC said Thursday it has performed well in the 27-week period ended August.
The company said trading in its core home collected credit market remains in line with its own expectations, with total credit issued in the first half flat at GBP85.5 million.
Cash collections grew 5% year-on-year, down from the 12% growth seen the year before.
Morses Club's total customer numbers slipped 2.2% to 224,000 from 229,000, but noted its gross loan book was stable, seeing slight growth of 0.2%.
Chief Executive Paul Smith said: "We are pleased by the performance of the business over the period."
"Morses Club continues to make strong progress on the development of our product diversification strategy, tailored for our customers across the non-standard credit market. We are fully engaged with ensuring that we effectively consolidate our new acquisitions into the group in line with our principles of financial prudence and excellent customer service. We are fully committed to developing a wider portfolio of products in line with the changing credit needs of our customers and the wider market," continued Smith.
The company said the recently appointed chief operating officer of unit Shelby Finance Ltd, Gary Marshall, is focused on the integration of Curo Transatlantic Ltd and U Holdings Ltd, as part of the company's "development of the digital product strategy enabling the group to offer banking style services with various credit services attached".
Morses unit Shelby Finance acquired the business and certain assets of Curo, trading as WageDayAdvance, in February for GBP8.5 million. Under the terms of the deal, Morses Club acquired all the existing infrastructure of Curo, including its decision platform, call centre, and online lending capabilities.
Morses believes offering a wider range of digital products will allow the company to capture a larger share of the non-standard credit market.
"The company is trading in line with expectations and we look forward to the second half of the year with confidence," added Smith.
Shares in Morses Club were 0.8% higher in London on Thursday at 126.00 pence each.
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