Analysts Brief/Trading Update

Provident Financial PLC
27 June 2002


              ANALYST PRE-CLOSE PERIOD BRIEFING - 27/28 JUNE 2002

The overall trading performance of the group has been in line with expectations
during the first five months of this year.

UK home credit

In the UK home credit division, credit issued, customer growth and profits are
developing broadly as expected. Bad debts have increased, as expected, but
remain within our target range of 8-9% of credit issued. Overall, our UK home
credit division is progressing as planned and our guidance for 2002 remains for
steady growth at a similar rate to that in 2001.

International

The International division continues to perform well. We have seen strong growth
in customer numbers together with stable credit quality during this year in all
our Central European markets. Bad debt as a percentage of credit issued for
Poland remains in the 9-10% range and the Czech Republic remains in the 11-12%
range. Profits in Poland and the Czech Republic continue to build and we expect
to report good improvements in profits in both countries at the half year. As in
our UK business, there is a strong bias in profits towards the second half of
the year. The widening margins we are experiencing in these businesses as they
grow amplifies this effect.

Hungary and Slovakia are both developing well. We will announce our development
plans for these countries with our interim results on 24 July 2002.

Overall, our guidance for the International business remains unchanged. We
continue to expect strong growth in customer numbers, credit issued and profit
from our International division for 2002 as a whole.

Motor Insurance

Our motor insurance division has performed a little ahead of our expectations.
We were able to raise our premium rates to match claims inflation, whilst
growing our policyholder numbers by a little over 1%. Profits for the half year
are, therefore, likely to be a little ahead of expectations, at a similar level
to those reported in the first half of 2001. Whilst the benefits of better than
expected trading in the early months of the year will flow through into the
results for the year, we continue to caution that a downturn in margins is
likely to begin this year.

We announced the sale of our motor insurance broking business, Colonnade
Insurance Brokers Limited, to Swinton Group Limited on 29 May 2002 for a cash
consideration of £27m. The profit on disposal was £4.1m, but after the
write-back of £14.8m of goodwill previously charged to reserves, we will report
as an exceptional item, a loss on disposal of £10.7m in the results to 30 June
2002. The profit before tax of the broking business up to the point of sale was
£1m. This compares to a profit before tax of £1.6m reported in the first half of
2001.

Group prospects

In conclusion, our overall trading performance is currently in line with
expectations and we expect this to continue for 2002 as a whole.


Enquiries:


Media

David Stevenson 01274 731111

Investor Relations

Rachel Yates 01274 731111



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