Time Finance impresses as loan book swells

In keeping with its December trading update, Time Finance (TIME) has delivered adjusted half-year earnings ahead of expectations. Demand for the group’s alternative finance products continues to increase, as high-street banks remain reluctant to provide funding to SMEs. But the banks' apparent diffidence looks to be overdone given that there are no signs that the quality of Time Finance’s loan book has deteriorated with write-offs for net bad debt stable at 1 per cent. Net deals in arrears fell by one percentage point to 5 per cent, all the more impressive given “the increasingly challenging environment for SMEs”.