The latest Advantage results have shown that customer numbers reached 58,100, 18% up on the same period May to July last year. Net receivables are £263m, up 15% on last year.
Advantage Finance, the non-prime car finance arm of S&U Financial, has recorded a fall in acceptance levels, from 31% in the first half of 2017 down to 25% in the first half of 2018.
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The Advantage results showed an average of over 80,000 monthly finance applications received by the finance arm, which is exclusively for used car finance. Finance and Leasing Association data for May showed that the POS consumer used car finance market reported new business growth of 12% by value and 9% by volume.
Advantage has improved in both new customer quality and early repayment performance. Overall monthly collections in H1 2018 are 20% up on H1 2017, now at roughly £12m per month.
Anthony Coombs, S&U chairman, said: “Advantage Finance maintains its remarkably reliable record of continued profitable growth over the past nineteen years in a variety of macro-economic conditions. Improvement in product, customer service and in underwriting strengthens their ability to build on this in years to come.”
Speaking to Motor Finance in March, executives at S&U attributed the ongoing increase in impairments at Advantage to lower credit quality previously underwritten and pressure on incomes.
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By GlobalData“The underwriting process … is one we are constantly refining, and in response to macroeconomic issues, we have actually increased some thresholds for affordability, so the actual approval rates have gone down,” an executive said at the time.
