Morses Club PLC receives full FCA authorisation

4th May 2017

Morses Club PLC

Morses Club PLC receives full FCA authorisation

Morses Club PLC ("Morses Club" or "the Company"), the UK's second largest home collected credit ("HCC") lender, is pleased to announce that it has received full FCA authorisation following a period of operating under interim permission.

Paul Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Morses Club, commented:

 "We are delighted to have received full FCA authorisation, marking a significant step in the development of the business. We will continue to focus on delivering good customer outcomes, using technology to maximise the customer experience. We strongly believe that listening to our customers and developing products to match their needs will help to continue to consolidate our strong position within the home collected credit market."

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Notes to editors

About Morses Club

Morses Club is the second largest UK Home Collected Credit lender with 216,000 customers and 1,826 agents (as at 25 February 2017) across 98 locations throughout the UK.

The Company offers a range of loan products to its customers through its extensive agent network. The majority of the Company's borrowers are repeat customers and the Company enjoys consistently high customer satisfaction scores of 95 per cent or above.

The Company is using technology to broaden its offering and provide new products to ensure customers can access credit with the flexibility they require. In April 2016, its cashless lending product, the Morses Club Card, was introduced, enabling its customers to buy online as well as on the high street.

Morses Club successfully listed on AIM in May 2016.

About the UK non-standard credit market

The UK non-standard credit market, of which UK HCC is a subset, consists of both secured and unsecured lending and is estimated to comprise around 10 million consumers.

Non-standard credit is the provision of secured and unsecured credit to consumers other than through mainstream lenders. Lenders providing non-standard credit principally lend on an unsecured basis. 

Since 2009, unsecured personal lending has grown from £161 billion to £244 billion in 2015.

UK Home Collected Credit

UK HCC is considered to be a specialised segment of the broader UK non-standard credit market. UK HCC loans are typically small, unsecured cash loans delivered via self-employed agents directly to customers' homes. Repayments are collected in person during weekly follow-up visits to customers' homes.

UK HCC is considered to be stable and well-established, with approximately 3 million people using the services of UK HCC lenders, of which 1.8 million people borrow regularly.