19 Aug 2020 07:00
19 August 2020
Morses Club PLC
("Morses" or the "Company")
Notice of Annual General Meeting
Morses Club PLC ("the Company" or "the Group"), an established provider of non-standard financial services, advises that, in advance of the Company's Annual General Meeting ("AGM"), the Notice of 2020 Annual General Meeting has today been posted to shareholders.
The Company publishes its documents for shareholders on its website, except where shareholders have specifically requested that hard copies are posted to them. The Notice of Annual General meeting is available online at: https://morsesclubplc.com/investors/key-corporate-documents. Shareholders requesting a hard copy of the document should e-mail: investors@morsesclubplc.com.
The Company's AGM will take place at 9.30am on Tuesday 22 September 2020. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the government's guidance on social distancing, shareholders are not permitted to attend the AGM in person this year. Shareholders can however submit a proxy vote online at www.signalshares.com or through CREST.
Shareholders are able to submit questions ahead of the AGM, which the Company will endeavour to answer via e-mail or on its website. Shareholders wishing to submit questions should e-mail: investors@morsesclubplc.com
As previously announced, the audit process for the Company's FY20 results continues as the results will include the impact of Covid-19 on the impairment of the closing loan book as at 29 February 2020. Morses Club will update the market on the announcement date for its full year results in due course.
On the completion of the audit process and subsequent publication of the Annual Report, the Company will hold a further general meeting at which the audited accounts and other related matters will be laid before shareholders. Details of this meeting will be provided in due course.
For further information please contact:
Morses Club PLC Paul Smith, Chief Executive OfficerAndy Thomson, Interim Chief Financial Officer
| Tel: +44 (0) 330 045 0719 |
Peel Hunt (NOMAD)Andrew Buchanan / James Britton / Rishi Shah / Duncan Littlejohns (Corporate) Jock Maxwell Macdonald (ECM)
| Tel: +44 (0) 20 7418 8900 |
CamarcoJennifer Renwick / Oliver Head / Jake Thomas | Tel: +44 (0) 20 3781 8332 |
Notes to Editors
About Morses Club
Morses Club is an established provider of non-standard financial services in the UK. The Group consists of Morses Club, the UK's second largest home collected credit ("HCC") provider, and Shelby Finance Limited, Morses Club's digital division, which operates under two online brands, Dot Dot Loans, an online lending provider, and U Account, which offers online e-money current accounts. The Group's growing digital capabilities and scalable, highly invested IT platform has enabled Morses Club to deliver an increasingly broad range of financial products and services to the non-standard credit market.
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.
Morses Club's HCC division is the second largest UK Home Collected Credit (HCC) lender with 224,000 customers 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 2016, the Morses Club Card, a cashless lending product, was introduced and in 2019 the Company introduced an online customer portal for its HCC customers, which now has over 109,000 registered customers.
The Group's growing digital division, Shelby Finance, operates under two online brands. Dot Dot Loans provides online instalment loans of up to 48 months to 37,000 active customers. U Account is a leading digital current account provider offering an alternative to traditional banking by providing a fully functional agency banking service. U Account currently has c. 18,000 customers.
Morses Club 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
Review ANNEX 1 - July 2017