Sun, Sea, Sand and Secured Loans
Following in the growing trend of the retail and non-financial service sectors acting as secured loans introducers, Harvey World Travel is going to start offering secured loans in its shops.
Harvey World, an Australian based group of travel agents, has signed a deal with Promise Finance to offer secured loans and mortgages in its UK stores. Harvey World Travel, who also has a large franchise network, began expansion into the UK in 2004 and in 2005 bought 22 shops from the Wardle Group. The loans will be offered for any purpose and not just holidays.
Harvey World will begin the roll out of the new offerings in some of its larger travel agents in the early part of next year.
Promise Finance has said this is the first of a number of strategic alliances it will be launching in the next six months.
This news follows a remarkable increase in the number of entities now acting as introducers for secured loans. In recent years, companies like the AA, RAC, Sainsburys, Tesco and Asda have signed introducer agreements and offer secured loans branded under their own names.
With the fact that people regularly book their holidays months in advance allied to the comparatively short turn around time for secured loans, this new channel will probably work for Promise.
The main problem I have with it is when advice about a holiday gets mixed and mingled with advice about a financial transaction. In the models mentioned above, the Supermarkets and Breakdown Service companies have no ‘one to one’ interaction with the client and the loans are promoted textually in leaflets and websites.
This new type of sales channel might cause some questions to be asked.
