Last checked at 21 Aug 2019 07:00
21 August 2019
Orchard Funding Group PLC
("Orchard Funding Group" or the "Company" or the "Group")
Trading Update
Orchard Funding Group, the finance group which specialises in insurance premium finance and the professions funding market, provides the following trading update for the year ended 31 July 2019.
Overall Group performance has been sound with lending and revenue numbers all expected to be higher than 2018. The Group's lending performance for the period was as follows:
| 31 July 2019 | 31 July 2019 |
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| £m | £m | % Increase |
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Lending volume | 73.13 | 68.73 | 6.40 |
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Loan book | 32.34 | 30.95 | 4.49 |
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During the year, the Board considered an alternative to obtaining its own banking licence and the Company announced that it had withdrawn its application for its own banking licence. After deliberations, the Board has now concluded that the acquisition of its own licence is its preferred course of action. Accordingly, the process of obtaining its own licence has therefore been restarted and is progressing into the current financial year. As a result, banking licence application costs for the year ended 31 July 2019 are expected to be lower than previously anticipated.
Orchard Funding Group intends to announce its final results for the year ended 31 July 2019 at the end of October 2019.
Orchard CEO, Ravi Takhar, said:
"We have again delivered a very satisfactory and solid performance to all of our stakeholders. I would like to thank our staff, customers and funding partners for their great support to our business. Orchard continues to blossom and we look forward to another year of great opportunity in our markets."
For further information, please contact:
Orchard Funding Group PLC +44 (0)1582 346 248
Ravi Takhar, Chief Executive Officer
Liberum (Nomad and Broker) +44 (0)20 3100 2222
Neil Patel
Richard Bootle
Laura Hamilton
For Investor Relations please go to: www.orchardfundinggroupplc.com
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.