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There has been an interesting update to the loans offered at Provident Personal Credit and so I thought that it would be a good idea to detail it here. Provident is the market leading doorstep lender that is also aided by their Greenwood brand that also competes for market share (they also run the Vanquis product within the credit card niche). With doorstep loans, their usual system in place is that one of their 11,000 agents will be designated to you and they will make frequent collections (usually each Friday). This product is still available as Provident Local, but a second product has now become available called Provident Online. For this product, no agent is involved with an automatic payment being taken from your bank each week.

This new service works out a little more expensive that I assume would be in light of them making a fast transfer to your bank. Their standard £100 loan over 14 weeks costs £40, but with this online service that £100 loan would be taken over 13 weeks costing £40.01 and so with one less week in place this creates a more expensive overall product. This online service carries smaller amounts as well that sits between £100 and £300, with £750 being due in time. Once approved, a member of their customer support will phone to confirm your details and then a transfer will be made to your bank. This online product is only available at Provident and not at the Greenwood brand at this time.

This looks to be an effort from this lender to compete with the UK’s major payday lenders. A £40.01 charge per £100 for 13 weeks works out at around £3.08 each week (£12.31 monthly) that as you can see is a competitive rate to pay. The process should be a great deal faster as well, now that you don’t have to meet up with an agent and then pay them by hand each week. From studying the site, I noticed that they still didn’t have an account login feature in place. Hopefully this is something that they will integrate in due time as with most payday and short term lenders you can login at any time to clear the balance early or to perhaps make an extension.