Barclays closes Firstplus loan subsidiary: 300 jobs lost

As we know Barclays Firstplus loan subsidiary was a controversial business for them, well they have now had to close the doors on the loan company. Barclays has had to cut 300 of the 400 staff, because of a 40 percent slump for demand of top-up mortgages.

Firstplus will stop making new loans as from next month, so Carol Vorderman will have to find another company to get some work now. Barclays has said that the freeze on new loans will leave its 128,000 existing borrowers unaffected.

From the 130 staff that will be retained who also help to process loans for Fair & Square, Barclays will allow them to look after their existing customers.

Over the past few years Firstplus has managed to generate hundreds of millions of pounds for Barclays, as they targeted homeowners who were unable to raise extra finance from their existing mortgage lender. The loans that were taken out were secured against their property, if the customer failed to pay the loan this would then trigger a default and repossession.

A number of anti-poverty campaigners had argued that Firstplus seemed to target on venerable homeowners, saying that they just forced them into over-stretching their borrowing, which in turn would push them towards the breadline.

Source