Finance Houses

Abstract

To most people finance houses are those bodies which undertake consumer finance in the form of instalment credit, and they are often qualified as ‘hire purchase finance houses’. This is indeed the way in which they are regarded for the purposes of official statistics, which cover only those bodies dealing in instalment credit; other activities of the same bodies are included, but activities outside the range of instalment credit are not covered if they are the business of separate subsidiary companies. Since finance houses are the main bodies providing consumer finance for purposes other than house purchase, we shall need to look briefly at consumer finance in general and at certain other types of body providing it, but our main concern will be with finance houses as institutions and with the wide range of activities which they conduct.