RE: Personal loans3 May 2024 09:07
Ratesetter has been shut down and most of its staff fired. Given there were around £30m of costs when it was acquired probably makes up a fair chunk of the £50m cost save. Management line was that unsecured worked better in low rate environment- but that is code for saying tehy wrote a load of loans in 2022 at less than 5% - unhedged of course- so the book was underwater. When Galinski demanded cost reduction it was an easy target. But lo and behold it turns out that if you close a business that was writing £1.5b a year, you end up with a gap in your lending the following year. But nevermind, they can take some wild punts on £45m loans to individual businesses and expand their concentrated lending in Care Homes and Hotels. What could go wrong?