Mark Fiander is chief executive of GAIN Credit, the London-based group behind the UK short-term lender Lending Stream, and chair of the Consumer Credit Trade Association. He came to high-cost credit from the other side of the counter, after years running strategy at a public body that gave people free money guidance.
Banking, Insurance and Consumer Goods
His career has run across banking, insurance and consumer goods before money guidance and lending. At the Money Advice Service, the UK government-backed body, he spent three and a half years as executive director for strategy, policy and proposition. The service drew heavy fire from MPs, and in 2013 the Treasury Committee called it not fit for purpose.
Joining GAIN Credit
He joined GAIN Credit in February 2016 and by 2018 was vice president of marketing and customer experience. Lending Stream had lent since 2008 and grew fast after the UK tightened rules on short-term credit. "Regulation somewhat leveled the playing field in our favor," he said in 2018. "We had always looked at underwriting and affordability."
Six Months, Not One
He has drawn a hard line between Lending Stream and the payday loan. "We've never done payday loans," he said. "If you need £300 this month, why would we think you could pay back £400 next month?" Lending Stream gives borrowers up to six months and lets them repay early without fees. Credit reports, he said, are only one element of each decision. In 2020 he appeared with Citizens Advice on a Money Advice Trust webinar on spotting and supporting vulnerable customers.
A Voice for the Trade
He rose to run the group and in August 2022 took the chair of the CCTA, a body more than a hundred years old, as the Financial Conduct Authority brought in its Consumer Duty. "It is vital that the credit industry has a strong, yet considered voice," he said, and he wants "responsible access to credit for all".
The man who once helped run free money guidance now runs a lender to people with patchy credit, and he keeps coming back to one question: can the borrower afford to pay it back?
