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As promised, here’s the second Secured Loans Titbits post.

Yesterday the OFT released information concerning its activity with Consumer Credit Licenses for the first six months of this year.

It said it had performed 485 licensing actions - which I presume is the number of licenses it has granted. In addition it also says it refused 17 applications and revoked a further 3 and published notices ‘minded to refuse or revoke’ to a further 51. It also stated it had sent out 107 warning or advisory letters.

One thing that surprises me is the number of people trading on the Internet who think they can get away with not having a license. I’m pretty sure that given time the OFT and FSA will catch up with them.

For more details see the OFT Press Release

Barclays who report their Firstplus secured lending under its consumer lending division ‘Barclaycard’ reported a drop in margin in that division due to a ‘higher weighting towards secured loans and competitive pressures’. However it also reports net fee and commission income in the division increasing 17% to 533million as a result of increased business from Skycard, Firstplus, Barclaycard Business and Barclaycard International. So it looks like the Firstplus business is growing but the margins are getting tighter.

For more details see the Barclays Results

Debts.co.uk who listed on AIM In May this year released a trading update yesterday saying that turnover will be ahead of expectations. Debts.co.uk also trades using the website debtcounsellors.co.uk. I’m a bit unsure about this Company, correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks to me as though they profess to be debt counsellors and market themselves as such and yet seem nothing more than everyday Credit Brokers.

For more details see their Trading Update

Here’s a quick round up of today’s Secured Loan titbits

Loanoptions has launched an updated website with a marketing toolbox and the added ability of being able to track secured loan applications on-line

Residential 1 has announced a secured loan packaging deal with Connect’s 1200 members - if you don’t know already, Connect is the largest group of Independent Mortgage brokers in the UK.

The Finance Centre has said it has seen a 34% increase in secured loan enquiries in the last six months compared to last year.

And finally…..

Some time ago I reported the Post Office had released a competitive PPI product. At the time I was concerned it could eat into the second loan PPI market because it was cheap, had good press coverage and marketing and gave cover for ‘bad backs’ and ’stress related illnesses’. Well I’m doing some more digging but it appears the product isn’t quite as attractive as I originally imagined. One of the problems is that claims are paid direct to the claimant rather than to the provider of the secured loan, unsecured loan, mortgage or whatever. This means that in the eyes of the DSS the money is seen as income.