"Strong customer growth" for International Personal Finance

The Leeds-based group said it had seen "strong year on year growth in customers, credit issued and receivables".

Collections performance remains strong, it added, with impairment continuing to improve and costs remaining well controlled.

IPF said that with three "significant" weeks of trading before the year end, it is on track to report full year results in line with expectations.

It also said that the fall in the rate of Hungarian corporation tax, from 19 per cent to 10pc from 2013, would be beneficial in the medium term but will result in a reduction of 4m to 5m in its deferred tax asset.

This means IPF expects the one-off charge to increase the group's effective tax rate for 2010 to around 33 per cent but that the effective rate will revert to around 28 per cent in 2011.

The preliminary announcement of IPF's full year results for 2010 will be published on March 2.