Quote ="Durham Giant"Maybe if the chief EXEC DID NOT PAY HIMSELF AN ANNUAL SALARY OF £3.5 MILLION POUNDS THEY COULD AFFORD LOWER RATES OF INTEREST TO THE BORROWERS
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I hardly think that the directors pay would affect rate. If the directors pay was reduced you could reduce the rates charged or increase shareholder dividends with the money saved, which would you go for, bearing in mind that you are legally required to maximise profits for the shareholders?
Provident are a Publicly traded company, they are legally obliged to maximise profit and price their rates to do so, if their costs went down they may lower rates, but only if doing so would increase revenue (i.e. the loss in revenue from each loan is made up for in more loans being issued) since we have already noted that they are a lender of last resort, and you, me, 99% of the population would not use them then the chances of lowering the rates for 435% to 335% (which really if you lowered his wage for 3.5M to 1M is probably all you could afford) resulting in a huge uptake in loans are slim.
As a result they are legally obliged to keep rates high, even if the chief exec lowers his wage – or are you implying that Provident should break the law?
Now you can argue that the law is maybe wrong and companies shouldn’t be legally obliged to maximise profit – but Provident can’t exactly decide which laws they follow and which they don’t.
You could of cause do what others here seem to suggest – change the business model to only lend to people who you are sure will pay back (and if they don’t pay back has assests that can be seized in the courts) and charge rates of 10-20%, (i.e. be a high street bank) – this of cause works but, by the posters here own logic the people who are “forced” to use Provident now to pay bills/food would not be lent money this way. They will then freeze/starve to death as nobody will then them money, or as one guy suggested be forced to work in a porn or a swet shop. Maybe you think that’s for the best....
For all there are lots of people complaining against Providents rates I have yet to see someone suggest another way that they can still make a profit and yet still lend to people who are unlikely to pay back, if they can think of a way to do this then why don’t they I’m sure everyone who is desperate for money would use the service.