The Mail on Sunday

HUSH MONEY

Lender ‘helped partners hide accounts’

- By Alex Hawkes

DISGRACED door-to-door lender Provident Financial offered customers ‘ silent accounts’ that enabled them to keep their debts secret from their partners, according to a former executive.

The firm also signed up customers to tiny loan deals they did not need and could easily repay, in order to flatter its accounts by making it look as though it had large numbers of reliable customers – a practice known as ‘pot busting’.

The claims have emerged in a statement by a former managing director of its doorstep credit arm, which sends agents to borrowers’ homes to collect repayments.

Andy Parkinson was dismissed a year ago following a catastroph­ic overhaul of the agents’ network at Bradford-based Provident.

He brought a tribunal claim which has heard in Leeds that in 2013 Provident was involved in ‘canvassing of potential customers on their doorstep which was at best noncomplia­nt and the outcome probably illegal’.

Parkinson said Provident was ‘systematic­ally ignoring affordabil­ity considerat­ions’, paying no attention to whether customers could manage the loans. He also claimed the company held lavish overseas strategy conference­s for its executives while customers struggled to make ends meet.

The claims are likely to worry investors, regulators and debt campaigner­s. The allegation that Provident lured in customers with loans they could hide from partners will anger charities dealing with people who have run up debts that ruined t heir relationsh­ips. Provident Financial even sponsored research by charity Relate last year into people who kept their partners in the dark about their financial woes.

It was a FTSE 100 business until last year’s calamitous move to cut down on door-to-door agents and rely more on technology. Former chief executive Peter Crook quit after the problems surfaced, causing the firm’s share price to drop 68 per cent in one day last summer. The Mail on Sunday revealed at the time that Crook had been paid more than £40 million over a decade at the helm of the company.

Provident Financial said it is committed to ‘adhering to its regula- tory obligation­s, delivering good customer outcomes and is implementi­ng its recovery plan’.

It said Parkinson’s unfair dismissal claim ‘is ongoing and it is not appropriat­e to comment on specific points raised in evidence’.

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 ??  ?? SCANDAL: Boss Peter Crook, and how his huge pay was revealed by the MoS last August
SCANDAL: Boss Peter Crook, and how his huge pay was revealed by the MoS last August

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