AGM Statement

Provident Financial PLC
17 May 2006

AGM Statement


In UK home credit, the early months of 2006 have benefited from the increased
focus on customer recruitment with the year on year reduction in customer
numbers improving from a 3% reduction at the end of 2005 to 1.5% at the end of
April 2006.  The first four months of 2006 have also seen slightly higher
volumes of credit issued with growth of 0.4% compared to the same period in
2005.  Costs have increased due to increased customer recruitment activity and
additional expenditure on IT.  Impairment charges continue to increase,
reflecting growth in receivables of 6% together with continued pressure on
customers' disposable incomes from rising fuel and utility costs.


Vanquis Bank continues to grow its credit card customer numbers which now stand
at 185,000.  Impairment charges are better than expectations following the
tightening of credit criteria in 2005.  This tightening, whilst successfully
controlling impairment charges has slowed growth in customer numbers and
revenues, but we continue to believe that this is a sensible trade-off.


The collect out of the Yes Car Credit receivables is progressing well with total
collections of £58m in the first four months of 2006, £2m ahead of budget.


Provident Insurance continues to trade as expected with profits continuing to
benefit from the favourable development of claims costs.


In International division customer numbers and credit issued for the first four
months grew by 10% and 9%, respectively.  In Central Europe growth was slower
with customer numbers up 3.5% and credit issued up by 2.6%, reflecting our focus
on improving the quality of lending in Poland.  Our rapid expansion in Mexico
continues and, as planned, we commenced trading in Romania in April.


We said, at the time of our preliminary results for 2005, that we were at the
early stages of considering whether obtaining a separate listing for
International, in due course, would allow the international growth opportunity
to be captured more quickly and maximise shareholder value.  We are discussing
the merits of this possibility with our largest shareholders and will provide a
further update on the results of our review with our interim results in
September.


Enquiries:

Media
David Stevenson                        01274 731111


Investor Relations
Helen Waggott                          01274 731111




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