Vanquis Banking Group plc (FPLPF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Vanquis Banking Group plc ( FPLPF ) Q2 2026 Earnings Call July 30, 2026 3:30 AM EDT Company Participants Ian Michael McLaughlin - CEO & Executive Director David Watts - CFO & Executive Director Conference Call Participants Abid Hussain - Panmure Liberum Limited, Research Division Presentation Ian Michael McLaughlin CEO & Executive Director Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our 2026 half year results webcast and conference call. I'm Ian McLaughlin, the Chief Executive Officer of Vanquis, and I'm joined, as usual, by our Chief Financial Officer, Dave Watts. Dave, good morning, and welcome. David Watts CFO & Executive Director Good morning, Ian. Ian Michael McLaughlin CEO & Executive Director I'll start with an overview of our performance and the updates to our outlook that we've announced this morning. Dave will then take you through some more detail on our numbers and guidance, and I'll come back to summarize. And then, of course, we'll be happy to take your questions. So if I can take you straight to Slide 4. The first half of 2026 represented another period of significant progress for Vanquis. We continue to lay the foundations for sustainable, profitable growth and attractive returns over the medium term. Let me draw out a couple of key points here. Firstly, we delivered a further 2 quarters of profitable growth. Statutory profit before tax increased by 44% year-on-year to GBP 8.9 million, so exceeding the profit that we delivered for the whole of 2025. Secondly, gross customer interest-earning balances increased by 24% year-on-year to more than GBP 3 billion, principally reflecting growth in second charge mortgages and in credit cards, and this supported an 8% increase in income. Importantly, that growth was delivered while maintaining stable credit quality, reflecting our disciplined underwriting and the continued financial resilience of our customers.