Doors still opening for Intl Personal Finance

Mid-cap doorstep lending firm, International Personal Finance, posted a 4% increase in credit issued for the quarter to date and despite reduced consumer confidence, said it remains on track for the full year.

"With three important weeks of trading to complete before the year end, we remain on track to deliver a good result for 2011," IPF said in a company update.

On a more cautionary note it said, "The current state of the global economy continues to make the outlook for 2012 unusually uncertain."

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IPF also outlined the significant volatility in foreign exchange markets in 2011 and more recently a weakening of its trading currencies against sterling.

"Overall, we estimate that compared to the effective rates used to translate overseas profits in 2011, current FX rates would negatively impact reported profit by 14%. As usual we will review our profit and loss account hedging for 2012 in January of next year," it said.

Otherwise the group said the business is in good shape, with a resilient operating model and a robust balance sheet. It said it is well positioned to deal with these challenges.

Commenting on the changes to Hungarian corporation tax legislation, which will now remain at 19%, IPF now expects a one-off reduction in the group's effective tax rate in 2011 of around 4% to 24%. The effective rate is expected to revert to around 28% in 2012.

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cj