News 1 October 2012 Response to Panorama programme of 1 October 2012 Provident Financial made the following statement to Panorama: Provident Financial has been making small home credit loans to customers for over 130 years.  The average loan is for 400. It is properly regulated and adheres strictly to the OFT's guidelines on responsible lending. Provident takes great care to ensure that it only lends amounts appropriate to the personal circumstances of each customer. Provident has strict policies in place to prevent loans being advanced to anyone it believes does not have the mental capacity to understand the terms of the loan they are taking out, whilst at the same time ensuring that it does not discriminate against anyone, including those with mental illness but no loss of mental capacity. The size of loan granted is always designed to match the circumstances of each individual customer. Provident is a responsible lender and currently 80% of our loan applications are turned down. In independent research, over 90% of our customers say they are satisfied with the home credit service they receive.  However, with 1.8 million customers we recognise that we will not always get it right and, if we make a mistake, we work hard to put matters right and will not hesitate to take any necessary action. Panorama made a number of allegations in its programme. Provident's responses to these allegations are set out below: Lending to people with mental capacity limitations Provident would never deliberately lend to someone who