Vanquis’ consumer credit business started in the depths of the industrial revolution, providing credit vouchers to poor communities in Yorkshire 150 years ago. Through the 20th century, it grew to lead that market nationally. After a difficult decade, the group is now seeing the benefits of a recent wide-ranging turnaround.
Back in 2017, a troubled attempt to update its door-step lending model led to a collapse in its market capitalisation. It then shut that business entirely in 2021 due to mis-selling concerns.
When Ian McLaughlin arrived as chief executive in 2023, it would be an understatement to say it was still finding its way – strategically and operationally – as many attempts to bring the business model and technology up to speed had fallen short.
McLaughlin’s arrival coincided with a board overhaul and then a series of new hires, including the arrival of a new chief financial officer, Dave Watts, in November 2023.
The bigger change that we’ve made here is just focusing on who we are here to serve: why is that important and how do we serve them well?
Ian McLaughlin
It also changed its name from Provident Financial around the same time, elevating the name of its credit card division, Vanquis, and bought Snoop, a personal financial management app founded by former Virgin Money CEO Jayne-Anne Gadhia.
That was the easy part.
A series of profit warnings then sent the stock to an all-time low by late 2024 as a balance sheet review unearthed millions of pounds in accounting errors. Coupled with write-offs associated with the development of a new app, total one-off charges rose to more than £100 million in 2024. The bank subsequently sunk to another full year statutory loss of £136 million on a pre-tax basis.
Path to recovery
The change since then has been remarkable. The share price more than doubled in 2025, far outperforming mainstream UK bank stocks, as the firm returned to consistent profitable growth – ultimately posting £8.3 million profit before tax for 2025 and beating all its key financial targets.
To get there, beyond the balance sheet cleanup, it has exited businesses it saw as value destructive, notably a loss-making personal loans business. It has also reduced reliance on credit lines, moving its savings strategy away from fixed-term bonds towards products such as easy-access savings. It increased retail deposits by 24% to £3 billion last year.
Perhaps most importantly for the longer term, it has embarked on a major technology transformation called Project Gateway to increase automation and bring its data architecture up to speed with the AI era – launching a new app and introducing chat-based customer service with agentic capabilities.
As it has shifted back to underserved borrowers, it has also recorded higher staff engagement.
“There are around 24 million working adults in the UK who can’t always access credit easily from the main lenders,” McLaughlin tells Euromoney. “Profit is an output of all the actions that we’re taking as a management team. The bigger change that we’ve made here is just focusing on who we are here to serve: why is that important and how do we serve them well?”
