Provident Financial Response

Provident Financial PLC
27 October 2005



     Competition Commission Home Credit Inquiry - Emerging Thinking



Provident Financial notes the publication of the Competition Commission's 
Emerging Thinking on the home credit inquiry setting out its emerging thoughts
on the broad range of issues it has been looking at over the past few months.


It is too early to draw any conclusions from the Emerging Thinking report which
is one of the early stages of the Competition Commission's process.  The
next steps will be the publication of Provisional Findings which is currently
scheduled for January 2006 and a final report in the early summer of 2006.


Provident Financial is pleased to note that the Competition Commission's
own research confirmed high levels of satisfaction among customers and that
agent relationships with customers were good and businesslike.


The Commission recognised that relatively high prices for home credit were
driven by factors such as the labour-intensive network of branches and agents.
This helps contain bad debt risk and is one of the features most valued by
customers.


Provident Financial will continue to contribute to the Commission's
work, stressing the increasingly competitive nature of the market for the supply
of small sum credit in which we operate, low barriers to entry and high levels
of customer satisfaction.


Enquiries:


Media:

Brunswick

Tel:  [phone]



Rachel Brown

Provident Financial plc

Tel:  [phone]



Investor Relations:

Helen Waggott

Provident Financial plc

Tel:  [phone]




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