MCL.L Regulatory News (MCL)

28 November 2019

Morses Club PLC

Issue of Equity under the Company's Share Incentive Plan

Morses Club PLC (the "Company"), an established provider of non-standard financial services, announces that under its Share Incentive Plan (the "SIP") the Company has issued 294,353 new Ordinary Shares, such shares representing 0.225% of the current issued ordinary share capital of the Company. Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the 294,353 new Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM ("Admission") and it is expected that Admission will become effective and trading will commence at 8.00 a.m. on 4 December 2019.

After Admission, the total number of Ordinary Shares in issue will be 131,244,444 and the total number of voting rights will therefore be 131,244,444. The Company does not hold any Ordinary Shares in treasury. This figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules. 

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Notes to Editors

About Morses Club

Morses Club is an established non-standard financial services provider, consisting of Morses Club, the UK's second largest home collected credit ("HCC") provider, and Shelby Finance, which operates online lending through its Dot Dot brand and U Holdings Limited, which provides online current accounts.

UK HCC is considered to be a specialised segment of the broader UK non-standard credit market. UK HCC loans are typically small, unsecured cash loans delivered directly to customers' homes. Repayments are collected in person during weekly follow-up visits to customers' homes. UK HCC is considered to be stable and well-established, with approximately 1.6 million1 people using the services of UK HCC lenders.

The HCC division is the second largest UK Home Collected Credit (HCC) lender with 224,000 customers and 1,817 agents across 92 locations throughout the UK. The majority of the Company's customers are repeat borrowers and the HCC division enjoys consistently high customer satisfaction scores of 97%2. In April 2016 its cashless lending product Morses Club Card was introduced, enabling its customers to buy online as well as on the high street. In February 2019, the Company introduced an online customer portal for its HCC customers, which now has over 30,000 registered customers.

Shelby Finance, via the Dot Dot brand has 36,000 active customers and U Holdings, through the U Account online current account brand has 16,000 customers. Dot Dot is a provider of 3 - 12 month online loans in the non-standard credit market.

Morses Club successfully listed on AIM in May 2016.

About the UK non-standard credit market

The UK non-standard credit market, of which UK HCC is a subset, consists of both secured and unsecured lending and is estimated to comprise around 10 million consumers3 and total loan receivables of £10.7bn4.

Non-standard credit is the provision of secured and unsecured credit to consumers other than through mainstream lenders. Lenders providing non-standard credit principally lend on an unsecured basis and the market is characterised by high frequency borrowing. Approximately 2 million people move annually between standard and non-standard markets4.

Since February 2014, unsecured personal lending has grown from £161 billion to £216 billion in February 20195.

1 High Cost Credit Review ANNEX 1 - July 20172 Independent Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted by Mustard3 FCA High Cost Credit Review Technical Annex 1: CRA data analysis of UK personal debt - July 20174 Apex Insight - Non-Prime Consumer Credit: UK Market Insight Report - September 20195 Table A5.2, Bank of England Money and Credit Bank stats February 2019