Want a tough job - try collecting debt door to door in the council estates of Northern England
I was reading the accounts of Provident Financial Group - a UK subprime lender. I have no position - but this appears to be an old relatively well run subprime lender with a prohibitively high price to book ratio.
Whatever - they are growing now through a credit card business where they are hawking cards on the street. And they are shrinking their foundation business which involves selling loans and collecting debt door-to-door.
That business - Provident - has a network of 5,500 agents who call each week at the homes of 900 thousand people in the UK. That is 32 homes each per working day.
And they originate credit and collect loans.
Here is an extract from the annual report:
According to this the agents are primarily paid commission on what they collect, not what they lend.
Just imagine this job. Being paid for collecting on tough debts in the rainy, dark north of England, a bit like an old rent collector, just a little more seedy.
By comparison my life (and probably yours) is sheltered and easy.
John