BRADFORD'S Provident Financial has announced it is on track to meet market expectations for 2020.

The group serves 2.2 million customers through its Vanquis Bank, Moneybarn and Consumer Credit Division operations.

The third quarter trading update follows an adjusted pre-tax loss of £32.6million for the first six months of this year, announced in August.

Malcom Le May, chief executive officer, who has returned following a leave of absence for health reasons, said: “The Group continued to trade in-line with internal plans during the third quarter and remains on-track to meet market expectations for 2020.

"Our capital and liquidity are a source of competitive advantage and we remain vigilant for possible economic shocks, including those caused by further local and national lockdowns. Such measures will inevitably have an impact on customer expenditure patterns and loan origination.

"As I have expressed previously, I am immensely proud of how the Group has responded to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and supported the financial needs of our customers throughout. The innovations each of our businesses introduced, and the collective effort of my colleagues across the Group, leaves us in a strong position operationally but considerable uncertainty remains.”

The update also outlines how at the end of September the Group's balance sheet remained robust, with total liquidity of £1.1 billion.

In addition it said that payment holiday take-up at Vanquis Bank continued to reduce to less than 1% of customers at the end of September.

Customer spend increased by around 31% on the previous quarter but remains around 15% lower year-on-year, in-line with trends seen across the credit card market.

Moneybarn continues to see strong levels of demand for used vehicles and payment holiday take-up at the end of September was around 1.5% of customers, a vastly reduced take-up trend.

In Home Credit, collections performance remained strong and has aligned to pre-Covid levels, with the proportion of collections being done via remote methods being more than 80%.

Mr Le May added that an operational review would be taking place in its consumer credit division to ensure the business is in the best position to "return to delivering long-term sustainable profitability".