Pre-Close Briefing

Provident Financial PLC
27 June 2003


PRE-CLOSE BRIEFING - 27 JUNE 2003

The trading performance of the group has been in line with expectations.

UK home credit is delivering modest profit growth. Customer numbers, collections
and revenue are up and operating costs remain under tight control.  Credit
issued is a little lower than in the previous year and, as expected, bad debt
has increased. Overall, the business is performing as planned and we continue to
believe the business will deliver modest profit growth in 2003.

Yes Car Credit has been successfully integrated into the group following its
acquisition in December of last year. New openings have increased the branch
network from 20 to 24 branches and the percentage of car sales that are financed
in-house has risen from 75% to 89%. As a result both sales and profit have grown
as planned.

Vanquis Bank successfully launched a market test of Visa branded credit cards in
the UK market in April. Cards are now in issue and data is being collected that
will help us to decide in 2004 whether to progress to a full scale roll-out.

Competitive conditions have continued in the UK motor insurance market.  In our
motor insurance division we choose only to write policies that earn an adequate
return and so we have reduced the scale of our operations; writing fewer
policies and cutting our operating costs. Profits have reduced in line with
expectations.

The international division is delivering excellent results. Customer numbers,
credit issued and revenue continue to grow rapidly, with some increase in the
bad debt ratio, and there has been a substantial increase in profit.
Preparations to open a pilot home credit operation in Mexico are well advanced
and we still expect to make our first loan there in the third quarter of the
year.  We continue to expect substantial growth in the contribution from the
international division in 2003.

Overall, the group continues to make good progress and we remain confident about
the group's prospects for 2003.


Enquiries:


Media
David Stevenson                   01274 731111



Investor Relations
Rachel Yates                         01274 731111




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