Emerging Europe: Home Credit sets its sights on Asia’s shoppers

Home Credit has more than 11 million customers in China and leads the market in point-of-sale loans

The prospect of financing China’s legions of eager shoppers has bankers around the world salivating. Yet so far foreign firms have struggled to get a foothold in the country’s still-young consumer-finance market.

A notable exception is Home Credit, a Czech group better known in the west for its operations in Russia. In 2010, when China’s banking regulator issued the first four pilot licences for private-sector consumer finance operators, Home Credit was the only foreign company to make the cut.