The Very Group has a new bank to operate its customer loan portfolio. The digital fashion/lifestyle retailer has appointed NatWest to run the securitisation of its buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) customer loans.
It replaces HSBC that had run the group’s £1.8 billion portfolio for about 10 years, reported The Times. The report said HSBC has been replaced after putting the owning Barclay family’s logistics company into administration last year while also ordered the sale of other assets owned by the Barclay family.
The bank appointed restructuring advisers to handle the insolvency of Logistics Group Limited last year to seek payment on debt of £143.5 million.
Very’s finance arm offers its BNPL service and accounts for around 90% of sales made through customer loans. The group repackages the loans into a securitisation facility that has been running for more than 20 years.
The BNPL service would have helped the Very Group enjoy “strong” Christmas trading growth at its key retail operation, “driven by exceptional sales in [the] Home and Toys, Gifts & Beauty categories”.
In the seven weeks to 27 December, Very UK delivering retail sales growth of 2.3% year-on-year, “supporting group retail sales growth of 0.5%”. Its standout categories in the festive period were Home (up 15%) and Toys, Gifts & Beauty (up 7.3%). Fashion & Sports saw less impressive 2.9% growth but the category rose 11.2% excluding Nike. Menswear was a strong category within Fashion & Sports.
