Specialist bank PCF Group Plc (LON:PCF) said results for the current financial year should be ahead of market expectations.
With less than a month of the current financial year left to run, the group said trading this year had been strong, with the launch of PCF Bank in July going better than expected.
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PCF Bank commenced retail deposit taking operations on July 27 and its success has exceeded expectations. To date, roughly £51mln of retail deposits have been received.
The new banking infrastructure is functioning well and customer feedback has been extremely encouraging, PCF Group revealed.
New business originations across the bank in the first 11 months of the fiscal year were 19.3% ahead of the same period last year at £74.1mln (2016: £62.1mln), with the increase driven largely by lending to small and medium-sized enterprises.
The group reported that its portfolio of loans remains of high quality, with the loan loss impairment charge in the year-to-date running at a record low rate of 0.5%, versus 1.0% at the end of August 2016.
No skeletons in the closet
As a relatively new entrant to retail banking, the group has no skeletons in the closet when it comes to the sort of products that have been mis-sold by its sector peers, and it emphasised that it does not offer the sort of “personal contract purchase” products that have got customers, regulators and shareholders of banks so angry.
“The successful launch of PCF Bank's retail deposit products has coincided with a number of new business initiatives, utilising the cheaper cost of funds, to expand the bank's addressable lending market. Our success in delivering these projects is testament to the team at PCF and provides momentum as we enter the new financial year and continue our strategy of scaling the portfolio and generating profitable and sustainable growth," said Scott Maybury, chief executive officer of PCF.
"There is excellent potential for growth in our proven, existing markets in the short and medium term; and over the next three years, asset diversification will provide greater acceleration in portfolio growth," he added.
PCF will release its full-year results in December.