The Cash Store had 27 branches in the UK and over 500 in Canada where they also often used the Instaloans branding. The Cash Store Financial Services Inc (owner) that was formed in 2001 however hit bad times, entering bankruptcy, with the British arm ceasing trading in August 2014. This was a good while ago. The reason why we have covered them now is that we have only recently started to investigate payday lending on the high street and their network was quite sizeable at 27. Their head office was in fact located nearby to us in Stockport. The business had been loss making for some time and they were relying on their Canadian parent company to stay afloat.

Ladder Loans closed down recently. They were part of DFC Global Corp who have such high profile brands on their roster as Payday Express, PaydayUK and The Money Shop. Ladder’s launch came in 2012. They were headed at the time as a project of Inventive Finance Ltd that was a division of DFC. There was some good qualities in this product seen in flexibility and pricing. The term spread was originally set as 6 to 18 months, but this was eventually cut down to 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. The qualifying amounts were £400 to £1500 that could be accessed by all customers. It was however pricing where they stood out the most.

Final Update: November 2nd, 2016 (CLOSED)

About…
Address: Lion Court, 25 Procter Street, London, WC1V 6NY.
Branding: My Home Finance. AKA: MHF, MyHomeFinance.
FCA Licence: 638540.
From: My Home Finance Ltd.
Launched: 2010.
Memberships: Non.
Related: No companies.
Website: www.myhomefinance.org.uk.

Final Update: September 29th, 2016 (CLOSED)

About…
Address: 117 Bath Road, Slough, SL1 3UW.
Branding: Logbook Loans Pro. AKA: LogbookLoansPro.
FCA Licence: 677922.
From: DTW Associates Ltd.
Launched: 2014.
Memberships: CCTA.
Related: Auto Advance, Cash & Cheque Express (Store).
Website: www.logbookloanspro.co.uk.

The logbook loan sector has been growing year-on-year and unlike in the payday space there are no interest caps. Due to this, lender casualties are rare, but one known company that has now bowed out is LoanMyMotor. On visiting the website where they were live (www.loanmymotor.com), this domain no longer exists. There is no news surrounding the closure online. You’d hedge your bets on this lender closing as a result of the fierce competition that is faced in this moderately sized sector. Due to the big merge over at Loans 2 Go, it has become difficult to compete in 2015 unless ad spends are high, or a firm has a large nationwide store network.

The doorstep loan sector is a small niche with just several lenders competing. Provident is commanding most of the market share whilst Morses Club is also taking up lots of business now that Shopacheck has joined forces. The less well known firms are essentially left fighting for scraps. It was a shame to learn that KDS Finance had closed down. This was one of the noted smaller companies active through www.kdsfinance.co.uk with this domain now pointing to a blank page. It is not clear when they closed. Not too long back they had given their website a fresh new look and so things were looking good at that point in time.

Final Update: September 3rd, 2016 (CLOSED)

About…
Address: 3rd Floor, 207 Regent Street, London, W1B 3HH.
Branding: BongaLoans. AKA: Bonga Loans.
FCA Licence: 645934.
From: BB Credit Ltd.
Launched: 2011.
Memberships: Non.
Related: No companies.
Website: www.bongaloans.com.

Lifeboat Loans launched in summer 2013 and they closed in the second half of 2014. This brand was setup by Lifeboat Assistance Ltd who were based in Doncaster. There has been some recent confusion in seeing Fidelity Works Ltd (known for True Blue Loans) having their site (www.lifeboatloans.co.uk) listed on their credit licence although this domain is currently listed for sale. There doesn’t appear to be a direct connection between these companies and so whether they acquired the rights when the closure took place is unclear. Fidelity Works do have quite a few projects and so they may have purchased, but decided not to run forward with the relaunch.

CFO Loans was a specialised guarantor loan product available through www.cfoloans.co.uk. This domain was created back in 2010, but the launch of this particular service came recently in 2014 and they wouldn’t end up making it to 2015. There is still to this day a fair amount of people searching for this brand through Google. It would be likely that a portion of those searching would be referring to CFO Lending. This is the name of the owner and they also traded through this identity, as well as Payday First. Whilst those were matched monthly payday offerings, this discussed option was a large guarantor loan between £500 and £5000.

Access Fast Money was a monthly payday loan lender that launched back in the year 2011 at www.accessfastmoney.co.uk. This creation came from Access Mortgage Underwriting Ltd that was a family-run business. There has been no official closure here, but the website has been displayed as undergoing scheduled maintenance since late 2014 and so it is highly likely that they won’t be returning. The brand itself remains popular online. They did stand out at one time for being one of the few lenders that claimed to offer no credit check payday loans. When you studied their site in detail it was shown that checks were in fact carried out.