Looking for a similar credit option to Provident Loans? Or perhaps you’ve been searching for a Provident loan online, or you may want to apply for a Provident loan?
While Provident Loans and its parent company Provident Personal Credit (PPC) are now no longer trading (the firm closed on 31 December 2021), many borrowers have been left pondering about which lenders could fill the gap it’s left.
Whether you were a customer with a Provident loan, are familiar with its also-ceased sister brands Satsuma and Glo, or know of PPC doorstep lending, the short-term loan provider that was once a household name has now been replaced by a swathe of more ethically-driven competitors with their customers’ affordability firmly in mind – Creditspring included.
What happened to Provident Loans?
Provident Personal Credit, also known as PPC or Provident Loans, closed its 140-year-old high-cost, short-term loan arm of the business at the end of 2021 owing to “changing industry and regulatory dynamics” and “shifting customer preferences”.
As one of the oldest doorstep loan providers in the UK (an often-considered controversial form of lending based on payments being delivered and collected by lenders on people’s doorsteps), it enabled those with a poor credit history to borrow small amounts of money with high interest rates, sometimes over 1500% APR.
However, after the company announced a decline in demand for its loans and an increase in customer complaints, it shut down its lending business for good. What’s more, Provident stopped collecting money from tens of thousands of its existing loan customers and wiped their loans altogether.
The controversy didn’t stop there. Many borrowers complained to Provident claiming they were granted loans despite not being able to afford them (i.e., they were mis-sold), so Provident set up a payout scheme for customers who took out a loan between 6 April 2007 and 17 December 2020, to provide them with compensation. It was, however, capped at £50 million and the deadline was at the end of February 2022.
This means that, if you are one of the many Provident customers that was mis-sold a Provident loan and are wondering ‘when will Provident pay out?’, or you’ve thought that Provident refunds are still possible, it's now too late to file your claim.
