Morses Club PLC Statement on FCA's Suspension of Wirecard UK (2964R)
29 June 2020 - 4:00PM
UK Regulatory
TIDMMCL
RNS Number : 2964R
Morses Club PLC
29 June 2020
29 June 2020
Morses Club PLC
Statement on FCA's Suspension of Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd
Morses Club PLC ("Morses Club" or the "Group") provides the
following update in light of the FCA's continued suspension of the
regulated activities of Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd ("Wirecard
UK"), which is the card issuer and banking partner for U Holdings
Ltd ("U Account"), a leading digital current account provider and
division of Shelby Finance Limited, a Morses Club subsidiary.
U Account customer accounts have been temporarily frozen with
access to view balances only. This is as a result of direct action
on Wirecard's UK operations by the FCA. No prior communication was
received by Morses Club from Wirecard UK. Morses Club has been in
communication with the FCA directly to try and understand when a
resolution will be found so that their customers can regain access
to their own funds.
U Account customers' money is held in a client account with
Barclays UK, meaning that these funds are ringfenced and not at
risk.
U Account currently represents 2% of Morses Club's total
income.
Paul Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Morses Club,
commented:
"We understand the frustration and distress that the
requirements imposed on Wirecard UK by the FCA are causing our
customers. We are in regular contact with the FCA and Wirecard UK
to understand the situation and find a swift resolution for our U
Account customers. While our customers' money is not at risk, we
understand the difficulty this temporary suspension is causing our
customers and we are working tirelessly to find a solution."
Morses Club intends to publish its FY20 results and provide an
update on current trading by the end of July 2020.
For further information please contact:
Morses Club PLC Tel: +44 (0) 330
Paul Smith, Chief Executive Officer 045 0719
Andy Thomson, Interim Chief Financial
Officer
finnCap Ltd (Nomad and Joint Broker) Tel: +44 (0) 20
Jonny Franklin-Adams (Corporate Finance) 7220 0500
Tim Redfern / Richard Chambers (ECM)
Peel Hunt (Joint Broker)
Andrew Buchanan / Rishi Shah / Duncan Tel: +44 (0) 20
Littlejohns (Corporate) 7418 8900
Jock Maxwell Macdonald (ECM)
Camarco Tel: +44 (0) 20
Jennifer Renwick / Oliver Head 3757 4994
Notes to Editors
About Morses Club
Morses Club is an established non-standard financial services
provider, consisting of Morses Club, the UK's second largest home
collected credit ("HCC") provider, and Shelby Finance Limited which
operates online lending through its Dot Dot brand and online
e-money current accounts through its U Account brand.
UK HCC is considered to be a specialised segment of the broader
UK non-standard credit market. UK HCC loans are typically small,
unsecured cash loans delivered directly to customers' homes.
Repayments are collected in person during weekly follow-up visits
to customers' homes. UK HCC is considered to be stable and
well-established, with approximately 1.6 million (1) people using
the services of UK HCC lenders.
The HCC division is the second largest UK Home Collected Credit
(HCC) lender with 224,000 customers and 1,695 agents across 90
locations throughout the UK. The majority of the Company's
customers are repeat borrowers and the HCC division enjoys
consistently high customer satisfaction scores of 97% (2) . In
April 2016 its cashless lending product Morses Club Card was
introduced, enabling its customers to buy online as well as on the
high street. In February 2019, the Company introduced an online
customer portal for its HCC customers, which now has over 78,000
registered customers.
Shelby Finance, via the Dot Dot brand has 37,000 active
customers and via the U Account brand, has c.18,000 customers using
the online e-money product. Dot Dot is a provider of 3 - 9 month
short-term online loans and 18 - 48 month online loans in the
non-standard credit market.
Morses Club successfully listed on AIM in May 2016.
About the UK non-standard credit market
The UK non-standard credit market, of which UK HCC is a subset,
consists of both secured and unsecured lending and is estimated to
comprise around 10 million consumers (3) and total loan receivables
of GBP10.7bn (4) .
Non-standard credit is the provision of secured and unsecured
credit to consumers other than through mainstream lenders. Lenders
providing non-standard credit principally lend on an unsecured
basis and the market is characterised by high frequency borrowing.
Approximately 2 million people move annually between standard and
non-standard markets (4) .
Since February 2014, unsecured personal lending has grown from
GBP161 billion to GBP216 billion in February 2019 (5) .
(1 High Cost Credit Review ANNEX 1 - July 2017 2 Independent
Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted by Mustard 3 FCA High Cost
Credit Review Technical Annex 1: CRA data analysis of UK personal
debt - July 2017 4 Apex Insight - Non-Prime Consumer Credit: UK
Market Insight Report - September 2019 5 Table A5.2, Bank of
England Money and Credit Bank stats February 2019)
This announcement constitutes inside information for the
purposes of article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No
596/2014.
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END
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