ORCH Orchard Funding Group Plc

1^st March 2024

Orchard Funding Group PLC

Trading Update

Orchard Funding Group PLC ("Orchard", the "Group" or "Company"), the finance group which specialises in insurance premium finance and the professions funding market, provides notification that it has suffered an instance of fraud, arising from dealings with a fraudulent introducer and fraudulent credit agreements funded by the Company as a result.

The Board has made a provision of approximately £500k in respect of these fraudulent credit agreements (the "Provision"), which will have a knock-on impact on the Group's year-end financials. The Provision represents the Group's total exposure to these fraudulent credit agreements, and there are no other agreements in place involving the Group which have been introduced via this introducer

The Board is conducting a thorough review of its wider lending book and introducer network to satisfy itself that no fraud risk exists elsewhere in its current loan book, alongside a review of its systems and controls and to ensure that the risk that the Company suffers a similar fraud in the future is minimised.

For further information, please contact:

Orchard Funding Group PLC                                                   +44 (0)1582 346 248

Ravi Takhar, Chief Executive Officer

Liberum (Nomad and Broker)                                                   +44 (0)20 3100 2222

Lauren Kettle

For Investor Relations please go to: www.orchardfundinggroupplc.com 

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 as amended by The Market Abuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. Upon the publication of this announcement via the Regulatory Information Service, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.