Home credit
Home credit provides a convenient way for people from all walks of life to borrow relatively small sums of money at short notice, in a manageable and transparent way. Loans are delivered to, and repayments are collected weekly from, the customer’s home by their agent.
Loans available from
£50
Average home credit loan issued
£330
A common feature of the emerging markets in which IPF operates is the rapid growth in the size of the market for consumer credit. At the same time, the consumer credit market remains significantly smaller than those of the developed western economies of the UK and the US. Consumer indebtedness in our markets typically represents less than 20% of annual disposable income compared with levels of 80% to 90% in the UK.
The wider consumer credit market includes mortgages, credit cards, hire purchase and cash loans. IPF operates in a sub-sector of the consumer credit market, servicing customers who require a fast cash loan and who seek or are only able to afford to repay small amounts of credit. Products in this sub-sector include credit cards, unsecured personal loans, overdrafts, home shopping catalogues and pawnbroker lending, as well as home-collected cash loans – commonly referred to as ‘home credit’.
Home credit provides a convenient way for people from all walks of life to borrow relatively small sums of money at short notice, in a manageable and transparent way. It is predominantly a woman-to-woman business – around three-quarters of agents and over half our customers are women.
We mainly lend in cash, in local currency, with sums ranging from as little as £50 to over £1,000. On average, we lent around £330 to each of our customers during 2008. Loans are short-term ranging from six months to two years, but most are for a period of about a year.
For the majority of home credit loans, we fix the total amount repayable on the loan at the outset and do not levy any penalty charges or interest as a result of missed payments. This applies regardless of the number of missed payments or changes in interest rates. Customers are not required to provide any form of guarantee or security in order to qualify for a loan.
The credit vetting of customers, the provision of the loan and the collection of weekly instalments are all performed in the convenience of the customer’s home by a home credit agent who is responsible for servicing the customer’s needs throughout their relationship with IPF.