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Divido’s Guide to Retail Finance Best Practice

Written by Marketing Team

London, July 27, 2022: Despite an overall fall in the total volume of sales, retail finance continues to go from strength-to-strength.

Even as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) recorded a three-month decline of 1.3% in the British retail sector up to May 2022, the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) reported new business in the retail store and online credit sector grew by 15% in May alone. Clearly, there is a strong appetite for retail finance among merchants, lenders and consumers.

But changes are afoot. In June 2022, the UK Government announced their plans to regulate the sector. The key changes, set to become law by 2023, include more stringent affordability checks and a tightening of the rules around communication. The proposed regulatory changes will benefit the sector in the long-term by reducing the risk of consumer harm and improving wider perceptions of retail finance, but will undoubtedly create disruption in the short-term as providers scramble to meet the changing requirements.

However, this period of adjustment opens the door for providers to optimise their retail finance programmes. While meeting the needs of changing regulation, finance providers can go one step further to streamline their journeys and make their platforms more intuitive than ever before.

In this guide, Divido presents six key findings from our own user experience research, which we offer as a new standard of best practice for point-of-sale finance. The recommendations are particularly relevant to platform providers, although we are sure they will also help lenders and merchants to identify the good platforms from the not-so-good ones.

The solutions offered here represent a universal best practice that, if implemented, will help to ensure consumers choosing retail finance at the point of sale will enjoy a seamless, consistent and trustworthy user experience, ultimately reinforcing positive perceptions of the industry and improving loyalty.

For more cutting-edge retail finance insights, visit the Resources section on the Divido website, subscribe to our email newsletter, The Checkout, and follow us on LinkedIn.

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