Finance & Leasing Association7 April 2017
New figures released today by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that consumer finance new business fell 3% in February, compared with the same month in 2016.
Credit card and personal loan new business together fell by 4% compared with February 2016, while retail store and online credit new business was down by 5%. Second charge mortgage new business fell 6% by value and 12% by volume over the same period.
Commenting on the figures, Geraldine Kilkelly, Head of Research and Chief Economist at the FLA, said:
“The fall in new business in February was the first monthly contraction since January 2015. The latest research by Oxford Economics, on behalf of the FLA, suggests that total UK new consumer credit is expected to grow at a more modest rate in 2017 as a whole than in recent years.”
Table 1: New consumer credit lending
| Feb 2017 |
% change on prev. year |
3 months to Feb 2017 |
% change on prev. year |
12 months to Feb 2017 |
% change on prev. year |
|
| Total FLA consumer finance (£m) |
6,292 |
-3 |
20,600 |
+3 |
88,531 |
+7 |
|
|
||||||
| Data extracts: |
||||||
| Retail store and online credit (£m) |
452 |
-5 |
1,618 |
-3 |
6,545 |
+2 |
| Credit cards & personal loans (£m) |
3,489 |
-4 |
11,539 |
+3 |
45,046 |
+6 |
| Second charge mortgages (£m) |
76 |
-6 |
217 |
-6 |
864 |
-2 |
| Car finance (£m) |
2,004 |
+2 |
6,401 |
+6 |
31,939 |
+10 |
Note to editors:
- FLA members in the consumer finance sector include banks, credit card providers, store card providers, second-charge mortgage lenders, motor finance providers, personal loan and instalment credit providers.
- In 2016, FLA members provided £118 billion of new finance to UK businesses and households. £88 billion of this was in the form of consumer credit representing over a third of total new consumer credit written in the UK in 2016.
