Premium Credit has been named as the ‘Credit Provider of the Year (Commercial)’ at the 2021 National Credit Awards.
The Awards recognise achievements in the UK credit space honouring standout professionals and firms in the varied fields of the credit industry, celebrating and promoting best practice, continuous development and the contribution towards raising standards within the sector.
Winning ways
Our winning award entry focused on the provision of innovative credit solutions for Credit Broker customers during the pandemic offering market leading, unsecured funding products for Tax, VAT and Professional Indemnity Insurance.
As Covid-19 hit and a national lockdown followed in March 2020, we recognised the needs of our partners and customers and redoubled our focus on supporting them, maintaining an uninterrupted access for new origination.
A flexible approach for existing and new credit customers
Existing borrowers were offered flexible forbearance solutions enabling them to continue trading without storing up indebtedness. In many cases the loan term was doubled – effectively halving the monthly repayments. We charged no additional interest or restructuring fees. This compared favourably to the relief offered by many other lenders.
There was also a focus on supporting new customers. We continued lending, winning new business and launching products with our largest broking partner, and writing loans across all sizes from £5k to £5m with multiple loans in excess of £1m.
Providing much needed funding to customers was a welcome finance income stream for broker partners during this challenging time.
Partner support
Throughout this period, we invested in our partners offering them brand-new online training modules which placed them in a stronger position to generate revenue through Premium Credit when the market re-opened. Our Capability Team provided free training to more than 260 brokers and formalised learning as a permanent addition to our partner proposition.
Communication is always key. We restructured our internal communication processes to increase our inter-departmental efficiencies opening up a direct line of communication between our partners and underwriting team, effectively communicating our underwriting criteria to all our brokers so business could progress smoothly.
Despite the initial lockdown and ongoing challenges caused by the pandemic, our aim throughout was to set ourselves apart by our willingness to lend via new and existing broker partners and even support the hardest hit industries such as retail with new loans.
This award illustrates our ongoing aim to successfully support our community of brokers and their customers by demonstrating flexibility, enhancing our product offering and investing in our services.
Roger Brown, Premium Credit’s, Chief Commercial Officer, Specialist Lending commented: “We are absolutely delighted to have been named as a winner at this year’s National Credit Awards. In a fast-paced, consumer-driven age our partners and their customers expect a clear multi-channel credit option to meet their credit needs in these challenging times. Being shortlisted and winning this award reflects our purpose, to proudly support our customers and partners, demonstrating that we are going the extra mile to deliver outstanding service, always looking for ways to improve what we do and how we do it.”
The award winners, including representatives from our Specialist Lending team, were recognised at the National Credit Awards ceremony held at the Waldorf Hilton, London on 21 October 2021.
