Provident Financial : PFG announces intention to change name to Vanquis Banking Group

Today we have announced we will be changing our name to Vanquis Banking Group, from Provident Financial. This change will formally take place in the first quarter of 2023.

The Group has a long history and social purpose of helping customers who are not well served by traditional lenders to access finance and was started in Bradford in 1880. The Group's social purpose is not changing, what is though, is the Group's name. The old name, Provident Financial, now, no longer accurately reflects what the Group has evolved into: a Banking Group.

The Group, in response to changing customer preferences and the evolving regulatory backdrop, took the strategic decision, in line with the recommendations of the Woolard Review (which investigated the regulation of the unsecured credit market), to focus the Group on the mid cost credit market, and base its customer proposition, growth and funding around that of its existing Bank, Vanquis.

Vanquis Bank was established in 2003, and provides customers with credit cards and personal loans, and accounts for c95% of the Group's customers, with 1.5 million credit card and personal loan customers. Moneybarn, the Group's vehicle finance brand accounts for 100,000 customers, now has access to retail deposits to fund customer lending as approved by the Prudential Regulation Authority in November 2022.

The Group's current name, Provident Financial, is predominantly associated with the Group's home credit business, sometimes referred to as the "Provvy". The Group exited the market in which the home credit business operated in 2021, and now only offers products with APR's ranging from circa 15% to 49%.

Therefore, to accurately reflect these changes and position the Group correctly we will be changing our name to "Vanquis Banking Group".

Given the macroeconomic challenges that many people in society are facing now, we would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that whilst the Group's name is changing, our focus will remain on offering tailored and responsible lending to customers in the mid cost and near prime credit markets, and on our corporate responsibly programme which supports financial inclusion and social mobility for our customers and the communities they live in.