CCS approves £51m home improvement loans in best ever 4th quarter
7th February 2012

Lancashire-based Consumer Credit Solutions (CCS) achieved its best ever trading quarter in Q4 2011, managing an approved lending figure of just over £51 million for homeowners. This coincided with its best ever October with £18.9 million of approved loans.

Operating exclusively in the home improvement market, CCS provided unsecured loans to customers of retail installers totalling almost £155 million in 2011, thus enabling CCS’ trading partners to sell big ticket items such as Windows, Conservatories, Kitchens, Bedrooms, Bathrooms, and PV Solar Panels.

CCS is by far the largest and only truly independent provider of point-of-sale credit, providing finance solutions to many of the UK’s top 100 home improvement companies, and is the preferred choice of almost all the top regional home improvement companies.

Andy Wallace CCS Managing Partner says: “Traditional direct lending sources such as banks and building societies are currently extremely cautious, and remortgages and personal loans are now far more difficult to come by. So it’s therefore harder for homeowners to buy and harder for companies to sell. Homeowners are being squeezed and they’re more cautious. They have some money, but few have enough available cash that’s not already earmarked for some other purpose. Around 85% of the UK adult population do not have ready access to £2,500 or more, and only 15% can therefore write a cheque for that amount on the spot, which often delays or derails a sale. They may have the monthly disposable income to finance the project, and can afford to buy, but homeowners may be reluctant to do without one purchase for the sake of another.”

Andy believes that many small to medium sized home improvement companies are missing a trick by not offering ‘in house’ finance because they see it as complicated, and unattractive to their prospective customers. He says “Many installers mistakenly believe that finance is still about high-interest rates and hard-sell. But times and products have changed. High street retailers use soft-sell credit products such as Buy Now, Pay Later, interest free credit, and low-rate finance because they make it easy for consumers to buy bigger ticket items. These low or no-interest ‘soft-sell’ promotional finance products are quite different from the old high-interest hard-sell products which are expensive and normally associated with the large national direct sell firms. CCS has been introducing the soft-sell credit concept to home improvements for many years. These credit products make it easier to sell, and by making it easier for homeowners to buy, our trading partners have a distinct edge over many of their competitors.”

Some home improvement companies see finance as difficult to sell, but CCS’ training and support make it simple and straightforward. Consumer Credit Solutions is the only finance supplier in this market genuinely providing full staff training and ongoing account management support.

“We find that companies who switch to promoting finance options soon sell more than they did before, while companies using finance effectively generally outperform those who don’t have that sales advantage.”

Visit www.creditsolutionsgroup.co.uk or call 0845 120 6666 to find out more.