The paper focuses on the profitability of the consumer credit industry in Europe. Using consumer credit companies’ financial statement data, we investigate the effect of firm-specific and market-specific factors on the profitability of a sample of French, German, Italian and Spanish consumer...

Consumer credit has become a topical issue for researchers, regulators and the banking industry in Europe as a result of increasing market integration, regulatory changes and a growing tendency of households to use debt to finance consumption. This study uses a cross-country approach to look at...