LON:IPF International Personal Finance Q2 2026 Earnings Report GBX 250 0.00 (0.00%) As of 08/4/2026 ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast International Personal Finance EPS ResultsActual EPSGBX 13.30Consensus EPS N/ABeat/MissN/AOne Year Ago EPSN/AInternational Personal Finance Revenue ResultsActual RevenueN/AExpected RevenueN/ABeat/MissN/AYoY Revenue GrowthN/AInternational Personal Finance Announcement DetailsQuarterQ2 2026Date7/29/2026TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateWednesday, July 29, 2026Conference Call Time2:00AM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckInterim ReportEarnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by International Personal Finance Q2 2026 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrJuly 29, 2026ShareShareShare This PageLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Positive Sentiment: Strong lending and receivables growth: Customer numbers rose 5.4% to 1.743 million, lending increased 18.5% at constant exchange rates, and net receivables grew 17% to £1.17 billion, supported by momentum in Poland, Mexico and IPF Digital. Positive Sentiment: Credit quality and funding remained robust. Management reported stable customer repayment behavior, a broadly unchanged 30.9% impairment coverage ratio, £107 million of funding headroom and a lower cost of funding of 12%. Neutral Sentiment: Pre-exceptional profit before tax was £47.4 million, down 5% reported and 13.5% at constant currency, in line with guidance as the company increased investment in growth, technology and data. The pre-exceptional return on required equity fell to 12.9% and is expected to remain below the 15%-20% target through 2027. Positive Sentiment: The recommended acquisition by Basepoint has received all required regulatory approvals, with a court sanction hearing scheduled for 31 July and the transaction expected to become effective on 4 August 2026. Shareholders are due to receive £2.35 per share plus a £0.15 special dividend, or £2.50 in total. Negative Sentiment: Implementation of the revised Consumer Credit Directive is progressing more slowly than expected across several markets, with potential delays into late 2026 or 2027, creating continued regulatory uncertainty. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallInternational Personal Finance Q2 202600:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipantsPresentationSkip to Participants Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:00:00Hello everybody, welcome to our presentation of the six months' results to the 30th of June 2026. Today, Gary Thompson, our CFO, and I will be very happy to talk you through the successes and the problems we've encountered over that period. Overall, it's been a really strong performance for us in that six-month period. As usual, I'm going to talk you through at a very high level the results. I'll also cover how we're doing on our strategy and why that's delivering the results you see today. Then I'll do a brief overview on what we see on the regulatory front. Gary's going to pick up from there, and he's going to talk us through those results in a lot more detail, division by division, and talk about the funding side and the balance sheet as well. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:00:43At the end, I'm going to pick it up then, and I'll give you some outlook comments. It should be an interesting presentation, but I should start by saying, for us, it's an unusual presentation. Ordinarily, we would be standing up and doing this room format, but circumstances have changed. Today, this is our last financial presentation as a listed entity on the FTSE. It's quite a momentous occasion for us. The reason is that we're being acquired by another entity, and that's Basepoint. I thought I should start by bringing you up to speed on where we are at with that transaction. If you look at this page here, you can see the timeline of the events that have taken us up to where we are today. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:01:29For many of you who know us, you'll know that on the 24th of December, we announced that we had agreed terms with Basepoint. That was our board, and the board of Basepoint had agreed to terms for a recommended offer for the business. We roll on to February 2026, and then we had a revised offer, which was GBP 2.35 a share, plus a special dividend of GBP 0.15, GBP 2.50 in total per share. We then had that approved at the shareholder meeting on the 11th of March, but then the really important piece was to get all of the regulatory approvals in place that we required. The final one of those came in just recently on the 3rd of July. So now, all of those conditions precedents that were set out in the documents have been met. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:02:18As we sit here today talking to you about these results, in a couple of days' time, on the 31st of July, we will have the sanction hearing of the court, and hopefully that all goes to plan. After that, on the 4th of August, the transaction should become effective. Basepoint then and their agents have 14 days to make all of the payments due under this transaction. Effectively, our last presentation as a PLC, but what's really good for us is that we're going out on a really strong note, and you'll see this as we walk through the results now. Turning now to the results and the strategy, just at a very high level. We announced this morning that we delivered GBP 47.4 million of pre-exceptional profit before tax. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:03:08What's really encouraging is that net receivables are up by 17% year-over-year. That's as a result of us seeing really strong demand from our customer segment. That's under-banked and under-served customers around the globe, but also really good operational execution throughout the business. The strategy that we have in place continues to be robust and appropriate going forward, and I'll talk about that in a second. The balance sheet, as always with us, we have a really strong balance sheet, and Gary's going to talk about that and the funding position. Unusually for us today, we're not going to talk about an interim dividend, and that's because as a result of the acquisition transaction, there is already a special dividend of GBP 0.15 that's been agreed upon I'll move on now just to talk a bit about our strategy. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:04:02What you see here on this page is just a pictorial representation of our three-pillar strategy; we call it our NextGen strategy. Just as a reminder, the three pillars are NextGen financial inclusion, that's all about us building the products and services and distribution channels to deliver to our customers the products that they want in the way that they want it and through the channels that they want it. That's been a big part of our development over the last few years. The NextGen org is all about us becoming a smarter and more efficient organization. Finally, NextGen tech and data are about investing; I really mean investing large sums of money in tech and data so that we can be relevant in the years ahead but also so that we can be smarter and more effective for our customers. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:04:52All of this is guided by the financial model that Gary has put in place and also supported by our values, which is being responsible, respectful, and straightforward. None of that has changed. If you know us at all, you'll have heard us talk about this now over a period of several years. How are we doing versus that strategy? Let me just give you some brief examples here. On financial inclusion, again, remember, this is about giving the customers the products and the services they want through the channels they want them. One example would be the credit card in Poland. The credit card market for our customers didn't exist in Poland three and a half, four years ago. Today, we're approaching close on a quarter of a million cards in issue, which is truly phenomenal. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:05:38We've effectively created that product in the market in Poland. As a result of that success, we're now in the test phase for that card in Romania. I'd imagine that within a matter of months, the results of that test will prove to be very positive. That's what we see in the early signs. We would expect to be rolling that card out in Romania as well. That feels like a huge success for us. In Mexico, we're continuing our expansion there, and as you know, we're opening approximately two branches per year, and the latest branch to be opened will be Chihuahua, and that'll be opening in a couple of weeks' time. Feeling very good about the expansion plans there. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:06:21Over the last couple of years, you've heard us talk about our partnership model, this is where we get together with retail partners, i.e., back to this, where the customer wants to acquire finance, providing finance to our customers when they're at the point that they want to purchase something. We have over 3,000 retailers on our books at this stage, feeling really positive about that. As always, when you open up a completely new distribution channel, what you have to do is build your scorecard. We're not going as fast as we could go here because we need to make sure that the credit quality is improving all the time. We're feeling positive about that. The final thing on financial inclusion is in the Czech Republic. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:07:03We acquired our largest home credit competitor in the Czech Republic a few months ago. In the overall context of IPF, it's a small acquisition; for our Provident business in the Czech Republic, we think this is hugely important. I'd have to say we're both really delighted with the way that integration is going. It's early days; it's only two or three months in, we feel really positive about that. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:07:29In terms of NextGen org, well, here what we're doing is we're putting a lot of time and effort now into ensuring that customer representatives, so you might call them agents, and we have more than 16,000 of them; we want to make sure they feel comfortable in their roles with us, because versus other businesses, you might think that there's reasonably high turnover, so it could be 30% or more turnover in that population that we have. We're putting a huge amount of effort into making sure that we're making the roles as positive and as productive for our agents as they possibly can be. Because bringing down agent turnover is fantastic. It's great for the agent. They have a longer time with us. They get to earn more money. Also, it has spin-off benefits for us. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:08:16Those agents become more successful at selling; in particular, their portfolio quality improves the longer they stay with us. Our focus here is all about the clarity of the role, the expectations, and making sure our agents are being appropriately rewarded. Finally moving on to tech and data. Here we've been investing very significant amounts of money in tech and data, both Gary and I would feel; at what stage do we feel we're spending enough money? For now, we're very satisfied that the money we're investing is delivering what we need. We have a big renewal program going on for all of our base systems, and we are now approaching 70% of the way through that program. At the same time, we're rolling out lots of things that are good for the customer, like our customer app. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:09:09That's been in Mexico for some time and Poland, but within a matter of probably a couple more months, it'll be across all four Provident businesses in Europe, and clearly it's already in Mexico. We're also putting money into what we would call more scalable platforms. One area would be SAP. We're putting in a completely new SAP system across the whole organization, and that is a mammoth undertaking for us. I feel like we're on target, generally speaking, Philip. Company Representative at IPF00:09:38Definitely. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:09:39It's going well. It's a multi-year, multi-million GBP project, that one for us. We believe it has huge payback down the line. Finally, AI, because lots of people ask us about the impact of AI on the business. You would have heard me say at the annual results when it was February that actually I'm becoming more and more optimistic about the impact, the positive impact, that AI can have in our business. We're seeing that in our call centers. In fact, as a team, as a leadership team, we had a two-hour session this morning, a teach-in for us as senior leaders on how to use AI effectively. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:10:20I would say as we go forward over the coming months, but particularly over probably the next couple of years, we're going to see quite significant changes in how we use AI in the business, and we believe that a lot of the returns there are going to come as a result of productivity. We'll get faster and smarter as a result of using AI, but I think productivity gains will be the key thing. That's where we're at in terms of our NextGen strategy, making good progress and really happy with how things are going. I thought now I'd just give you a brief update on regulatory matters. The key thing that's occupying our minds in terms of regulation at the moment is the Consumer Credit Directive II. The CCD I was in place for, I think, 14-15 years. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:11:06It's now been replaced by CCD II. The implementation date for that, I think, is November of this year. It's been a long time coming, so you would expect that all of the countries would be ready. The truth is, it's Hungary that is the one country that is ready, and they've promulgated it in their local law. For our other countries that are affected by this, many of those countries aren't there yet, and it does look like they possibly might not be there by the deadline. What that means for us is that we're currently having ongoing engagement with regulators and politicians about this because it is still open to some extent in some of these countries. We have a really good track record in terms of implementing regulatory change, and I feel positive that that should be the case here. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:11:55Whereas we would have expected by now to be done on this and just waiting for implementation, in fact, it feels like that's going to be pushed out further, probably to later in 2026, but for some of these countries, surely into 2027. It's in hand but probably taking longer than we would have expected, but it has nothing to do with us; it has more to do with the environment in each of these individual countries. That's it for me. The brief update, really strong set of results, strategy being executed well, and a regulatory update there on CCD2. With that, I'm going to hand you over to Gary now, and Gary's going to take us through much more detail in terms of the financial performance for the six months. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:12:40Thank you, Gerard, and hello everybody. Moving on to the first slide, profit before tax. As you've heard from Gerard, we've delivered another solid set of results in the first half, delivering a profit before tax of GBP 47.4 million. It's really important to say that's fully in line with our plans this year. The reduction in profit, 5% on a reported basis but 13.5% on what we call a constant currency basis, so that's taking out FX, is entirely consistent with the guidance we provided at the year-end results last year in terms of accelerating and investing in our growth agenda. It's important also to note, as Gerard said, the result was delivered through disciplined execution of our NextGen strategy and stable credit quality around the group. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:13:41Before I go on to talk about the results in a little bit more detail, I should flag that there were a couple of exceptional costs in the first half, which totaled GBP 4.6 million. It's split into two parts. The first part is we incurred GBP 3.3 million of costs relating to the reorganization of our businesses in Czechia, where we acquired Express Cash, as Gerard mentioned. We also simultaneously closed our digital business, and that was a small business with around 7,000 customers, but we're now focused on driving the scale in the home credit business. Secondly, we incurred a further GBP 1.3 million of transaction-related costs, and that's on top of the GBP 3 million that we incurred in 2025. Now, moving on to some more of the detail behind the numbers, if we start with customer growth. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:14:38It was really good to see a continuation of the really good momentum we saw in the second half of last year flow through into the first half of this year. We overall delivered a 5.4% increase in customer numbers, up to 1.743 million in the first half. There's really good demand not only for our core products but also for the newer channels and the newer products that we have introduced over recent years. What I will say as well is the growth in customer numbers included 13,000 customers acquired with Express Cash in May. It was really good to see that all three divisions supported the growth in the first half. Provident Europe delivered 3.7% growth, with around half of that being delivered organically and the other half being delivered through the acquisition of Express Cash that I've just mentioned. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:15:37Provident Mexico delivered really solid growth of 4.5%; IPF Digital delivered 12.7% growth, with the main contributors being Mexico, where our expanded product set, including short-term loans and retail finance, delivered 26% growth. Also in Australia, where our increased brand investment delivered 15% growth. Now, if we move on to lending growth. We delivered a real acceleration in lending growth in the first half of the year, delivering 18.5% growth at constant exchange rates. Again, all three divisions delivered really good growth. Firstly, if we look at Provident Europe, we delivered strong growth of 25%, and there, Poland was the main driver, with growth of around 50%. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:16:33That is following the launch of a new two-year credit card product in Poland, which allows us to offer higher credit limits to customers but also, at the same time, maintain affordable repayments over a longer term for customers. Approximately 50,000 customers were transitioned from the one-year product onto the new product in the first half. Romania, Hungary, and the Czech Republic combined delivered really solid growth of 8% during the first half, which backed up the strong performance from Poland. Moving on to Provident Mexico. Provident Mexico delivered 9% lending growth in the first half, which again really carries on the momentum that was built in the second half of last year. We've always thought that the growth in Mexico in that sort of 9%, 10%, and 11% mark is a real sweet spot of growth to keep the operational rhythm working perfectly. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:17:31Provident Mexico delivered another really solid first-half result. In IPF Digital, again, there's really good growth in both customer numbers, which you've seen, but also in lending, and there's real good demand for those fully remote credit solutions. Lending was overall up 12%; again, that's really us investing in new product and distribution channels as well as, you may remember, investing more in our brands. In terms of individual countries, Poland delivered 40% growth, Australia 14%, Mexico 10%, and our more mature Baltic markets delivered around 3% growth. Overall, a really, really good growth performance from the IPF Digital division. Moving on to receivables. Overall group receivables grew by 17% to GBP 1.17 billion, which was supported by, again, double-digit growth in each division. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:18:34In Provident Europe, growth was 23%, up to GBP 649 million, the biggest growth there was in Czech, where we grew by 42%, with around GBP 12 million of that growth being attributable to the acquisition of Express Cash. Again, that's broadly half of the growth that we delivered in Czech. Poland, similar to the lending growth, grew really strongly at 33% year-over-year. Again, that's supported by good lending growth generally, but also the introduction of the new two-year product, the credit card there, which customers really, really appreciate and really like. In Romania and Hungary, we also delivered really good growth there with 16% and 14% growth, respectively. All around, really good growth in Provident Europe on a receivables level. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:19:30If we move to Provident Mexico, again, really good growth, 12% there from Provident Mexico up to GBP 210 million, that's really supported by the ongoing geographic expansion with two new branch openings this year and also the really strong, disciplined operational rhythm that is adopted by David and his team in Provident Mexico. If we move to IPF Digital, receivables growth there was 10%; Poland led the way with growth of 27%. Australia delivered 18% growth, and the Baltics delivered really solid growth of 6%. The actual rate of receivables growth in Mexico was actually lower than expected at 5%, that's really due to the mix of lending in the first half, which was much more weighted to the newer channels such as short-term lending and retail finance, where loan sizes are much smaller. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:20:34Credit quality is a little worse in the early stages as we refine our scorecards; the actual ticket size of lending is much smaller than when it's balanced towards more existing lending. That's why you've seen such strong growth in customer numbers in Mexico Digital but much lower receivables growth. The balance will change as we progress; we should see more growth from existing customers. In the first half, the dynamic you saw was the much bigger growth in the newer channels. If you turn to our core KPIs supporting the financial model that Gerard mentioned earlier, as you might know, the key metrics that we use to assess performance are revenue yield, impairment rate, cost to income, and return on required equity. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:21:26Before I jump to talking about those individual metrics, what you will see again on the slides that follow is us presenting the metrics on a fully consolidated basis, also excluding Poland. This is really due to the significant impact of the ongoing transition in Poland that we've experienced over the recent two to three years, due mainly obviously to regulation and us introducing the credit card. They have distorted some of our medium-term targets. We like to present them in both ways, really to set out the picture for everyone to see more clearly what's happening. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:22:10The trends that I'm about to talk you through are fully in line with our guidance and our expectations; therefore, when you look at the metrics, the key to getting to the group's medium-term targets is really about rescaling the Polish business through the increase in the distribution of the higher-yielding credit card proposition. If we start with revenue yield, in Provident Europe, we saw the yield reduce by 1.5% to 44.1%; this is really down to two factors. Firstly, the flow-through of lower rate caps in Poland, although we expect the Polish yield to begin to recover as we expand the credit card offering I just mentioned. Secondly, we also saw a slight moderation in yield in Hungary, again due to a reduction in interest-linked rate caps. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:23:10Because Poland's growth was so strong in the first half and it is slightly lower yielding than the other three countries, that was a contributing factor to why overall the yield is a bit lower in the first half. In Provident Mexico, we also saw a reduction in the yield from 84.4% to 83.4%. This is due to the increase in the mix of good-quality existing customers. Clearly, as you get bigger and grow, there are more existing customers in the book, and typically, they are served with slightly longer-duration, lower-yielding loans. Clearly better quality, you will see a small reduction in the yield as there is a bigger portion of existing customers in the portfolio. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:23:58Moving on to IPF Digital, the annualized revenue yield saw, again, a slight reduction to 42.4% due to the strong growth really in Poland and Australia, both of which are slightly lower yielding relative, in particular, to Mexico. Overall, when we look at the group, the annualized revenue yield has reduced from 53.3% down to 52% over the last 12 months. As I started this section with, if you exclude Poland, the revenue yield was actually around 55.7%, which is pretty much at the bottom end of our target range of 56%-58%. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:24:39Clearly improving the revenue yield remains a key feature for us as a business, and we expect the ongoing shift to higher-yielding products through credit cards in Poland and the growth in Mexico to help improve the revenue yield over the coming years and firmly get us into that target range of 56%-58%. Moving on, despite some volatility in macroeconomic conditions in our markets, customer repayment behaviors remained really stable and robust, and we continue to be really happy with the loan portfolio around the group. As expected, though, the annualized impairment rate actually increased by 1.7 percentage points to 10%, and that is really all to do with the upfront IFRS 9 impairment charges associated with strong growth, and particularly in our new channels. That was entirely expected. Okay. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:25:45Again, if you exclude Poland, which over the last 12 months, because it actually shrank before it has now started to grow, it has actually had a really favorable impairment position. That is what you get when you shrink with our upfront accounting. As you grow, you pick up more impairment because you take it all up front. Actually, if you exclude Poland, the annualized impairment rate was 13.1% at the end of the first half. Actually, that is nicely below the group's target range of 14%-16%. Credit quality is in really good shape. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:26:19We do expect that impairment rate to trend back towards that target level, albeit probably at the lower end of that, over the next two years as we continue to regrow and gain scale in Poland but also as Mexico receivables continue to take a bigger portion of the portfolio because the Mexican businesses, while they have a higher yield, also have a higher impairment rate. Finally, on impairment, the really stable credit quality has meant that our impairment coverage provision ratio has remained broadly unchanged at around 30.9% at the half-year. In a really conservative, robust position. Moving on to costs, you'll see that costs increased by 9.3% compared with average receivables growth of 11.4%. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:27:13As we continue to focus on two things, clearly keeping costs under wraps and disciplined cost management, we are also continuing to invest in growth and our strategic capabilities to support that growth in the future. The annualized cost-income ratio improved by about 1.5 percentage points to 60.4%, which clearly is supported by revenue growth but also scale benefits as we start to regrow Poland. Actually, if we exclude the Polish business, the group's annualized cost-income ratio was around 55.9%. That is above our longer-term target of 49%-51%, but as we continue to gain scale, not only in Poland but in our digital businesses, we expect to come down to our target range over the medium term. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:28:09If we move on to return on required equity, consistent with the guidance we gave at the end of last year, the pre-exceptional return on required equity has reduced from 15.4% to 12.9% over the last 12 months. That really, again, is all to do with the acceleration in growth and is entirely consistent with both our guidance and our own plans. The effective tax rate behind this is 38%, which is consistent with last year. We expect our returns to remain below our target level of 15%-20% through 2026 and actually through 2027 as we continue to invest in growth and increase our scale before returning to target levels in 2028. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:29:05I should also say, if you look at our returns, based on statutory earnings and actual equity, our ROE was 9.1% at the end of June, down from 14.7% in June last year, which is really a combination of the reduction in profit after tax, but also the exceptional charges that we've incurred over the last 12 months. Before I hand back to Gerard, I'd like to talk you through our strong funding and capital position, which really underpins our growth ambitions. At the end of June, we had total debt facilities of GBP 820 million, which comprised GBP 552 million in bonds and GBP 268 million in bank funding. Net borrowings at the end of June total GBP 713 million, which basically meant that the group has funding headroom at a really nice, comfortable level of GBP 107 million. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:30:08For me, the highlight of the first half was the strengthening of our funding position with the successful pricing of SEK 950 million bonds; that's about GBP 75 million. The really positive thing about this transaction was there was excellent demand, and the margin on that borrowing was 5.75%; that's the lowest margin we've achieved for a number of years. It's really pleasing to see the market really understanding and also reflecting the strength of this business, the strong cash flow position. That was really pleasing for us. Sticking with debt capital markets, our credit ratings remain unchanged with both Moody's and Fitch; they both continue to have a stable outlook for the group. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:31:04Our blending cost of funding has reduced from 12.5% in the first half last year to 12% in the first half of this year, benefiting from lower interest rates but also reduced hedging costs. Our gearing and interest cover covenants are at 1.3x and 2.5x, respectively; they're both comfortably within the covenant limits of 3.75x and 2x at the end of June. Finally, the equity to receivables ratio stands at 48% at the end of the first half. That's down from 53% 12 months ago; that reduction really reflects the acceleration in receivables growth over the last 12 months. That's been partly offset by foreign exchange gains of around GBP 36 million over the 12-month period, which have been taken to reserves mainly through the Mexican peso and Hungarian forint strengthening against sterling over that period. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:32:11That capital position supports the group's growth plans through to the point at which we're delivering our target returns and operating much closer to our 40% equity to receivables targets; we expect that to be in 2028. To sum up, another really good, solid set of results in the first half of 2026. Credit quality's stable, in really good shape, and there's really good momentum on lending growth. Obviously, we've got a very strong funding and capital position to support that growth. On that note, I'll hand back to Gerard. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:32:50Thank you. If we turn now to the outlook page, really this is just a summation of what Gary's really talked us through in detail. We saw really good demand in the six-month period; on the back of that, we saw good credit quality and excellent operational execution. That's really what keeps this business driving forward: the operational execution day in, day out. The balance sheet, as Gary said, is really strong, a robust funding position, with lots of funds in place to continue to build the organization. In terms of investments, clearly we're investing more in technology, we're also investing in growth. We did indicate last year that we would be spending approximately GBP 5 million more per annum for the next three years on both technology and the opportunities to grow. I think we're still well within that envelope. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:33:39Yep Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:33:40Feeling good about those investments. From a regulatory perspective, obviously CCD II is the focus. Not there yet because of countries not really being ready, but when they are ready, we will be ready. Finally, we feel confident about delivering on the strategy, because the strategy is as applicable today as it was the day we created it, and we are building financial inclusion. Finally, just to wrap up this last session of ours as a listed entity, I just want to say a huge thank you to all of our colleagues, because if you're watching, you are this business. You deliver every day for our customers, and it's through your hard work that we deliver this success. A huge personal thank you from Gary and from me for that. With that, we're going to sign off. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:34:28If you have any questions for us, you'll find our contact numbers and details on the website; we're always available to talk to. From Gary and from me, thank you very much. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:34:40Thank you. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:34:41We'll take the business forward from here. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:34:43Yeah. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:34:43Thank you.Read moreParticipantsAnalystsGerard RyanCEO at IPFCompany Representative at IPFGary ThompsonCFO at IPFPowered by Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckInterim report International Personal Finance Earnings HeadlinesInternational Personal Finance Executives Exercise Large Tranches of Share OptionsAugust 3, 2026 | tipranks.comForm 8.3 - The Vanguard Group, Inc.: International Personal Finance plcJuly 8, 2026 | markets.businessinsider.comYour book attachedBill Poulos is giving away his 'Safe Trade Options Formula' book for free - but only for a limited time through a temporary download link. He plans to charge for it soon. Download your copy now and lock it in at no cost, regardless of future pricing.August 11 at 1:00 AM | Profits Run (Ad)International Personal Finance consolidates SEK bond tranches into single 2028 seriesJune 24, 2026 | tipranks.comInternational Personal Finance updates €1bn medium-term note prospectusMay 29, 2026 | tipranks.comInternational Personal Finance Discloses Senior Executive Share SaleMay 26, 2026 | tipranks.comSee More International Personal Finance Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like International Personal Finance? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on International Personal Finance and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About International Personal FinanceInternational Personal Finance (LON:IPF) is helping to build a better world through financial inclusion by providing affordable credit products and insurance services to underserved consumers across nine markets. Our 1.7 million customers, who have low to medium incomes and a limited credit history, turn to us to fulfil their plans when it really matters. As a group of people who are often financially excluded, we play a vital role in society by responsibly providing unsecured, affordable credit tailored to meet their personal needs and financial circumstances, as well as a variety of great value home, medical and life insurances to help them and their families. There is significant demand for affordable credit within our target demographic, and we see substantial and sustainable long-term growth opportunities through meeting the needs of more consumers with an increased choice of products and distribution channels. Our history of growth and innovation has successfully helped meet the credit needs of more than 15 million customers, created genuine career opportunities for our people to develop and grow, and generated more than £1 billion of profit in the past decade. 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PresentationSkip to Participants Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:00:00Hello everybody, welcome to our presentation of the six months' results to the 30th of June 2026. Today, Gary Thompson, our CFO, and I will be very happy to talk you through the successes and the problems we've encountered over that period. Overall, it's been a really strong performance for us in that six-month period. As usual, I'm going to talk you through at a very high level the results. I'll also cover how we're doing on our strategy and why that's delivering the results you see today. Then I'll do a brief overview on what we see on the regulatory front. Gary's going to pick up from there, and he's going to talk us through those results in a lot more detail, division by division, and talk about the funding side and the balance sheet as well. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:00:43At the end, I'm going to pick it up then, and I'll give you some outlook comments. It should be an interesting presentation, but I should start by saying, for us, it's an unusual presentation. Ordinarily, we would be standing up and doing this room format, but circumstances have changed. Today, this is our last financial presentation as a listed entity on the FTSE. It's quite a momentous occasion for us. The reason is that we're being acquired by another entity, and that's Basepoint. I thought I should start by bringing you up to speed on where we are at with that transaction. If you look at this page here, you can see the timeline of the events that have taken us up to where we are today. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:01:29For many of you who know us, you'll know that on the 24th of December, we announced that we had agreed terms with Basepoint. That was our board, and the board of Basepoint had agreed to terms for a recommended offer for the business. We roll on to February 2026, and then we had a revised offer, which was GBP 2.35 a share, plus a special dividend of GBP 0.15, GBP 2.50 in total per share. We then had that approved at the shareholder meeting on the 11th of March, but then the really important piece was to get all of the regulatory approvals in place that we required. The final one of those came in just recently on the 3rd of July. So now, all of those conditions precedents that were set out in the documents have been met. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:02:18As we sit here today talking to you about these results, in a couple of days' time, on the 31st of July, we will have the sanction hearing of the court, and hopefully that all goes to plan. After that, on the 4th of August, the transaction should become effective. Basepoint then and their agents have 14 days to make all of the payments due under this transaction. Effectively, our last presentation as a PLC, but what's really good for us is that we're going out on a really strong note, and you'll see this as we walk through the results now. Turning now to the results and the strategy, just at a very high level. We announced this morning that we delivered GBP 47.4 million of pre-exceptional profit before tax. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:03:08What's really encouraging is that net receivables are up by 17% year-over-year. That's as a result of us seeing really strong demand from our customer segment. That's under-banked and under-served customers around the globe, but also really good operational execution throughout the business. The strategy that we have in place continues to be robust and appropriate going forward, and I'll talk about that in a second. The balance sheet, as always with us, we have a really strong balance sheet, and Gary's going to talk about that and the funding position. Unusually for us today, we're not going to talk about an interim dividend, and that's because as a result of the acquisition transaction, there is already a special dividend of GBP 0.15 that's been agreed upon I'll move on now just to talk a bit about our strategy. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:04:02What you see here on this page is just a pictorial representation of our three-pillar strategy; we call it our NextGen strategy. Just as a reminder, the three pillars are NextGen financial inclusion, that's all about us building the products and services and distribution channels to deliver to our customers the products that they want in the way that they want it and through the channels that they want it. That's been a big part of our development over the last few years. The NextGen org is all about us becoming a smarter and more efficient organization. Finally, NextGen tech and data are about investing; I really mean investing large sums of money in tech and data so that we can be relevant in the years ahead but also so that we can be smarter and more effective for our customers. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:04:52All of this is guided by the financial model that Gary has put in place and also supported by our values, which is being responsible, respectful, and straightforward. None of that has changed. If you know us at all, you'll have heard us talk about this now over a period of several years. How are we doing versus that strategy? Let me just give you some brief examples here. On financial inclusion, again, remember, this is about giving the customers the products and the services they want through the channels they want them. One example would be the credit card in Poland. The credit card market for our customers didn't exist in Poland three and a half, four years ago. Today, we're approaching close on a quarter of a million cards in issue, which is truly phenomenal. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:05:38We've effectively created that product in the market in Poland. As a result of that success, we're now in the test phase for that card in Romania. I'd imagine that within a matter of months, the results of that test will prove to be very positive. That's what we see in the early signs. We would expect to be rolling that card out in Romania as well. That feels like a huge success for us. In Mexico, we're continuing our expansion there, and as you know, we're opening approximately two branches per year, and the latest branch to be opened will be Chihuahua, and that'll be opening in a couple of weeks' time. Feeling very good about the expansion plans there. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:06:21Over the last couple of years, you've heard us talk about our partnership model, this is where we get together with retail partners, i.e., back to this, where the customer wants to acquire finance, providing finance to our customers when they're at the point that they want to purchase something. We have over 3,000 retailers on our books at this stage, feeling really positive about that. As always, when you open up a completely new distribution channel, what you have to do is build your scorecard. We're not going as fast as we could go here because we need to make sure that the credit quality is improving all the time. We're feeling positive about that. The final thing on financial inclusion is in the Czech Republic. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:07:03We acquired our largest home credit competitor in the Czech Republic a few months ago. In the overall context of IPF, it's a small acquisition; for our Provident business in the Czech Republic, we think this is hugely important. I'd have to say we're both really delighted with the way that integration is going. It's early days; it's only two or three months in, we feel really positive about that. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:07:29In terms of NextGen org, well, here what we're doing is we're putting a lot of time and effort now into ensuring that customer representatives, so you might call them agents, and we have more than 16,000 of them; we want to make sure they feel comfortable in their roles with us, because versus other businesses, you might think that there's reasonably high turnover, so it could be 30% or more turnover in that population that we have. We're putting a huge amount of effort into making sure that we're making the roles as positive and as productive for our agents as they possibly can be. Because bringing down agent turnover is fantastic. It's great for the agent. They have a longer time with us. They get to earn more money. Also, it has spin-off benefits for us. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:08:16Those agents become more successful at selling; in particular, their portfolio quality improves the longer they stay with us. Our focus here is all about the clarity of the role, the expectations, and making sure our agents are being appropriately rewarded. Finally moving on to tech and data. Here we've been investing very significant amounts of money in tech and data, both Gary and I would feel; at what stage do we feel we're spending enough money? For now, we're very satisfied that the money we're investing is delivering what we need. We have a big renewal program going on for all of our base systems, and we are now approaching 70% of the way through that program. At the same time, we're rolling out lots of things that are good for the customer, like our customer app. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:09:09That's been in Mexico for some time and Poland, but within a matter of probably a couple more months, it'll be across all four Provident businesses in Europe, and clearly it's already in Mexico. We're also putting money into what we would call more scalable platforms. One area would be SAP. We're putting in a completely new SAP system across the whole organization, and that is a mammoth undertaking for us. I feel like we're on target, generally speaking, Philip. Company Representative at IPF00:09:38Definitely. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:09:39It's going well. It's a multi-year, multi-million GBP project, that one for us. We believe it has huge payback down the line. Finally, AI, because lots of people ask us about the impact of AI on the business. You would have heard me say at the annual results when it was February that actually I'm becoming more and more optimistic about the impact, the positive impact, that AI can have in our business. We're seeing that in our call centers. In fact, as a team, as a leadership team, we had a two-hour session this morning, a teach-in for us as senior leaders on how to use AI effectively. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:10:20I would say as we go forward over the coming months, but particularly over probably the next couple of years, we're going to see quite significant changes in how we use AI in the business, and we believe that a lot of the returns there are going to come as a result of productivity. We'll get faster and smarter as a result of using AI, but I think productivity gains will be the key thing. That's where we're at in terms of our NextGen strategy, making good progress and really happy with how things are going. I thought now I'd just give you a brief update on regulatory matters. The key thing that's occupying our minds in terms of regulation at the moment is the Consumer Credit Directive II. The CCD I was in place for, I think, 14-15 years. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:11:06It's now been replaced by CCD II. The implementation date for that, I think, is November of this year. It's been a long time coming, so you would expect that all of the countries would be ready. The truth is, it's Hungary that is the one country that is ready, and they've promulgated it in their local law. For our other countries that are affected by this, many of those countries aren't there yet, and it does look like they possibly might not be there by the deadline. What that means for us is that we're currently having ongoing engagement with regulators and politicians about this because it is still open to some extent in some of these countries. We have a really good track record in terms of implementing regulatory change, and I feel positive that that should be the case here. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:11:55Whereas we would have expected by now to be done on this and just waiting for implementation, in fact, it feels like that's going to be pushed out further, probably to later in 2026, but for some of these countries, surely into 2027. It's in hand but probably taking longer than we would have expected, but it has nothing to do with us; it has more to do with the environment in each of these individual countries. That's it for me. The brief update, really strong set of results, strategy being executed well, and a regulatory update there on CCD2. With that, I'm going to hand you over to Gary now, and Gary's going to take us through much more detail in terms of the financial performance for the six months. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:12:40Thank you, Gerard, and hello everybody. Moving on to the first slide, profit before tax. As you've heard from Gerard, we've delivered another solid set of results in the first half, delivering a profit before tax of GBP 47.4 million. It's really important to say that's fully in line with our plans this year. The reduction in profit, 5% on a reported basis but 13.5% on what we call a constant currency basis, so that's taking out FX, is entirely consistent with the guidance we provided at the year-end results last year in terms of accelerating and investing in our growth agenda. It's important also to note, as Gerard said, the result was delivered through disciplined execution of our NextGen strategy and stable credit quality around the group. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:13:41Before I go on to talk about the results in a little bit more detail, I should flag that there were a couple of exceptional costs in the first half, which totaled GBP 4.6 million. It's split into two parts. The first part is we incurred GBP 3.3 million of costs relating to the reorganization of our businesses in Czechia, where we acquired Express Cash, as Gerard mentioned. We also simultaneously closed our digital business, and that was a small business with around 7,000 customers, but we're now focused on driving the scale in the home credit business. Secondly, we incurred a further GBP 1.3 million of transaction-related costs, and that's on top of the GBP 3 million that we incurred in 2025. Now, moving on to some more of the detail behind the numbers, if we start with customer growth. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:14:38It was really good to see a continuation of the really good momentum we saw in the second half of last year flow through into the first half of this year. We overall delivered a 5.4% increase in customer numbers, up to 1.743 million in the first half. There's really good demand not only for our core products but also for the newer channels and the newer products that we have introduced over recent years. What I will say as well is the growth in customer numbers included 13,000 customers acquired with Express Cash in May. It was really good to see that all three divisions supported the growth in the first half. Provident Europe delivered 3.7% growth, with around half of that being delivered organically and the other half being delivered through the acquisition of Express Cash that I've just mentioned. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:15:37Provident Mexico delivered really solid growth of 4.5%; IPF Digital delivered 12.7% growth, with the main contributors being Mexico, where our expanded product set, including short-term loans and retail finance, delivered 26% growth. Also in Australia, where our increased brand investment delivered 15% growth. Now, if we move on to lending growth. We delivered a real acceleration in lending growth in the first half of the year, delivering 18.5% growth at constant exchange rates. Again, all three divisions delivered really good growth. Firstly, if we look at Provident Europe, we delivered strong growth of 25%, and there, Poland was the main driver, with growth of around 50%. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:16:33That is following the launch of a new two-year credit card product in Poland, which allows us to offer higher credit limits to customers but also, at the same time, maintain affordable repayments over a longer term for customers. Approximately 50,000 customers were transitioned from the one-year product onto the new product in the first half. Romania, Hungary, and the Czech Republic combined delivered really solid growth of 8% during the first half, which backed up the strong performance from Poland. Moving on to Provident Mexico. Provident Mexico delivered 9% lending growth in the first half, which again really carries on the momentum that was built in the second half of last year. We've always thought that the growth in Mexico in that sort of 9%, 10%, and 11% mark is a real sweet spot of growth to keep the operational rhythm working perfectly. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:17:31Provident Mexico delivered another really solid first-half result. In IPF Digital, again, there's really good growth in both customer numbers, which you've seen, but also in lending, and there's real good demand for those fully remote credit solutions. Lending was overall up 12%; again, that's really us investing in new product and distribution channels as well as, you may remember, investing more in our brands. In terms of individual countries, Poland delivered 40% growth, Australia 14%, Mexico 10%, and our more mature Baltic markets delivered around 3% growth. Overall, a really, really good growth performance from the IPF Digital division. Moving on to receivables. Overall group receivables grew by 17% to GBP 1.17 billion, which was supported by, again, double-digit growth in each division. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:18:34In Provident Europe, growth was 23%, up to GBP 649 million, the biggest growth there was in Czech, where we grew by 42%, with around GBP 12 million of that growth being attributable to the acquisition of Express Cash. Again, that's broadly half of the growth that we delivered in Czech. Poland, similar to the lending growth, grew really strongly at 33% year-over-year. Again, that's supported by good lending growth generally, but also the introduction of the new two-year product, the credit card there, which customers really, really appreciate and really like. In Romania and Hungary, we also delivered really good growth there with 16% and 14% growth, respectively. All around, really good growth in Provident Europe on a receivables level. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:19:30If we move to Provident Mexico, again, really good growth, 12% there from Provident Mexico up to GBP 210 million, that's really supported by the ongoing geographic expansion with two new branch openings this year and also the really strong, disciplined operational rhythm that is adopted by David and his team in Provident Mexico. If we move to IPF Digital, receivables growth there was 10%; Poland led the way with growth of 27%. Australia delivered 18% growth, and the Baltics delivered really solid growth of 6%. The actual rate of receivables growth in Mexico was actually lower than expected at 5%, that's really due to the mix of lending in the first half, which was much more weighted to the newer channels such as short-term lending and retail finance, where loan sizes are much smaller. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:20:34Credit quality is a little worse in the early stages as we refine our scorecards; the actual ticket size of lending is much smaller than when it's balanced towards more existing lending. That's why you've seen such strong growth in customer numbers in Mexico Digital but much lower receivables growth. The balance will change as we progress; we should see more growth from existing customers. In the first half, the dynamic you saw was the much bigger growth in the newer channels. If you turn to our core KPIs supporting the financial model that Gerard mentioned earlier, as you might know, the key metrics that we use to assess performance are revenue yield, impairment rate, cost to income, and return on required equity. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:21:26Before I jump to talking about those individual metrics, what you will see again on the slides that follow is us presenting the metrics on a fully consolidated basis, also excluding Poland. This is really due to the significant impact of the ongoing transition in Poland that we've experienced over the recent two to three years, due mainly obviously to regulation and us introducing the credit card. They have distorted some of our medium-term targets. We like to present them in both ways, really to set out the picture for everyone to see more clearly what's happening. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:22:10The trends that I'm about to talk you through are fully in line with our guidance and our expectations; therefore, when you look at the metrics, the key to getting to the group's medium-term targets is really about rescaling the Polish business through the increase in the distribution of the higher-yielding credit card proposition. If we start with revenue yield, in Provident Europe, we saw the yield reduce by 1.5% to 44.1%; this is really down to two factors. Firstly, the flow-through of lower rate caps in Poland, although we expect the Polish yield to begin to recover as we expand the credit card offering I just mentioned. Secondly, we also saw a slight moderation in yield in Hungary, again due to a reduction in interest-linked rate caps. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:23:10Because Poland's growth was so strong in the first half and it is slightly lower yielding than the other three countries, that was a contributing factor to why overall the yield is a bit lower in the first half. In Provident Mexico, we also saw a reduction in the yield from 84.4% to 83.4%. This is due to the increase in the mix of good-quality existing customers. Clearly, as you get bigger and grow, there are more existing customers in the book, and typically, they are served with slightly longer-duration, lower-yielding loans. Clearly better quality, you will see a small reduction in the yield as there is a bigger portion of existing customers in the portfolio. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:23:58Moving on to IPF Digital, the annualized revenue yield saw, again, a slight reduction to 42.4% due to the strong growth really in Poland and Australia, both of which are slightly lower yielding relative, in particular, to Mexico. Overall, when we look at the group, the annualized revenue yield has reduced from 53.3% down to 52% over the last 12 months. As I started this section with, if you exclude Poland, the revenue yield was actually around 55.7%, which is pretty much at the bottom end of our target range of 56%-58%. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:24:39Clearly improving the revenue yield remains a key feature for us as a business, and we expect the ongoing shift to higher-yielding products through credit cards in Poland and the growth in Mexico to help improve the revenue yield over the coming years and firmly get us into that target range of 56%-58%. Moving on, despite some volatility in macroeconomic conditions in our markets, customer repayment behaviors remained really stable and robust, and we continue to be really happy with the loan portfolio around the group. As expected, though, the annualized impairment rate actually increased by 1.7 percentage points to 10%, and that is really all to do with the upfront IFRS 9 impairment charges associated with strong growth, and particularly in our new channels. That was entirely expected. Okay. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:25:45Again, if you exclude Poland, which over the last 12 months, because it actually shrank before it has now started to grow, it has actually had a really favorable impairment position. That is what you get when you shrink with our upfront accounting. As you grow, you pick up more impairment because you take it all up front. Actually, if you exclude Poland, the annualized impairment rate was 13.1% at the end of the first half. Actually, that is nicely below the group's target range of 14%-16%. Credit quality is in really good shape. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:26:19We do expect that impairment rate to trend back towards that target level, albeit probably at the lower end of that, over the next two years as we continue to regrow and gain scale in Poland but also as Mexico receivables continue to take a bigger portion of the portfolio because the Mexican businesses, while they have a higher yield, also have a higher impairment rate. Finally, on impairment, the really stable credit quality has meant that our impairment coverage provision ratio has remained broadly unchanged at around 30.9% at the half-year. In a really conservative, robust position. Moving on to costs, you'll see that costs increased by 9.3% compared with average receivables growth of 11.4%. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:27:13As we continue to focus on two things, clearly keeping costs under wraps and disciplined cost management, we are also continuing to invest in growth and our strategic capabilities to support that growth in the future. The annualized cost-income ratio improved by about 1.5 percentage points to 60.4%, which clearly is supported by revenue growth but also scale benefits as we start to regrow Poland. Actually, if we exclude the Polish business, the group's annualized cost-income ratio was around 55.9%. That is above our longer-term target of 49%-51%, but as we continue to gain scale, not only in Poland but in our digital businesses, we expect to come down to our target range over the medium term. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:28:09If we move on to return on required equity, consistent with the guidance we gave at the end of last year, the pre-exceptional return on required equity has reduced from 15.4% to 12.9% over the last 12 months. That really, again, is all to do with the acceleration in growth and is entirely consistent with both our guidance and our own plans. The effective tax rate behind this is 38%, which is consistent with last year. We expect our returns to remain below our target level of 15%-20% through 2026 and actually through 2027 as we continue to invest in growth and increase our scale before returning to target levels in 2028. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:29:05I should also say, if you look at our returns, based on statutory earnings and actual equity, our ROE was 9.1% at the end of June, down from 14.7% in June last year, which is really a combination of the reduction in profit after tax, but also the exceptional charges that we've incurred over the last 12 months. Before I hand back to Gerard, I'd like to talk you through our strong funding and capital position, which really underpins our growth ambitions. At the end of June, we had total debt facilities of GBP 820 million, which comprised GBP 552 million in bonds and GBP 268 million in bank funding. Net borrowings at the end of June total GBP 713 million, which basically meant that the group has funding headroom at a really nice, comfortable level of GBP 107 million. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:30:08For me, the highlight of the first half was the strengthening of our funding position with the successful pricing of SEK 950 million bonds; that's about GBP 75 million. The really positive thing about this transaction was there was excellent demand, and the margin on that borrowing was 5.75%; that's the lowest margin we've achieved for a number of years. It's really pleasing to see the market really understanding and also reflecting the strength of this business, the strong cash flow position. That was really pleasing for us. Sticking with debt capital markets, our credit ratings remain unchanged with both Moody's and Fitch; they both continue to have a stable outlook for the group. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:31:04Our blending cost of funding has reduced from 12.5% in the first half last year to 12% in the first half of this year, benefiting from lower interest rates but also reduced hedging costs. Our gearing and interest cover covenants are at 1.3x and 2.5x, respectively; they're both comfortably within the covenant limits of 3.75x and 2x at the end of June. Finally, the equity to receivables ratio stands at 48% at the end of the first half. That's down from 53% 12 months ago; that reduction really reflects the acceleration in receivables growth over the last 12 months. That's been partly offset by foreign exchange gains of around GBP 36 million over the 12-month period, which have been taken to reserves mainly through the Mexican peso and Hungarian forint strengthening against sterling over that period. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:32:11That capital position supports the group's growth plans through to the point at which we're delivering our target returns and operating much closer to our 40% equity to receivables targets; we expect that to be in 2028. To sum up, another really good, solid set of results in the first half of 2026. Credit quality's stable, in really good shape, and there's really good momentum on lending growth. Obviously, we've got a very strong funding and capital position to support that growth. On that note, I'll hand back to Gerard. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:32:50Thank you. If we turn now to the outlook page, really this is just a summation of what Gary's really talked us through in detail. We saw really good demand in the six-month period; on the back of that, we saw good credit quality and excellent operational execution. That's really what keeps this business driving forward: the operational execution day in, day out. The balance sheet, as Gary said, is really strong, a robust funding position, with lots of funds in place to continue to build the organization. In terms of investments, clearly we're investing more in technology, we're also investing in growth. We did indicate last year that we would be spending approximately GBP 5 million more per annum for the next three years on both technology and the opportunities to grow. I think we're still well within that envelope. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:33:39Yep Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:33:40Feeling good about those investments. From a regulatory perspective, obviously CCD II is the focus. Not there yet because of countries not really being ready, but when they are ready, we will be ready. Finally, we feel confident about delivering on the strategy, because the strategy is as applicable today as it was the day we created it, and we are building financial inclusion. Finally, just to wrap up this last session of ours as a listed entity, I just want to say a huge thank you to all of our colleagues, because if you're watching, you are this business. You deliver every day for our customers, and it's through your hard work that we deliver this success. A huge personal thank you from Gary and from me for that. With that, we're going to sign off. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:34:28If you have any questions for us, you'll find our contact numbers and details on the website; we're always available to talk to. From Gary and from me, thank you very much. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:34:40Thank you. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:34:41We'll take the business forward from here. Gary ThompsonCFO at IPF00:34:43Yeah. Gerard RyanCEO at IPF00:34:43Thank you.Read moreParticipantsAnalystsGerard RyanCEO at IPFCompany Representative at IPFGary ThompsonCFO at IPFPowered by