AROUND 200 jobs have been created by Bradford-based lender Provident Financial Group at its new Satsuma online credit operation.

The roll-out of Satsuma – designed to provide an alternative to payday lenders – has created pressure on space at Provident’s Sunbridge Road head office and it has leased a floor in the adjacent former Thomas Cook premises at Aldermanbury.

Peter Crook, Provident chief executive, said the temporary accommodation would be kept while the company decided what to do with an annexe to the former T J Hughes department store building it bought a couple of years ago.

He said the Satsuma business – which provides online loans of up to £1,000 with fixed weekly repayments – was expected to break even by the end of 2015.

Announcing Provident’s 2014 results, he said the group was now capitalised at around £4 billion and its rising share price put it on the cusp of joining the FTSE 100 register of the UK’s larger companies.

Provident is scrapping its loss-making trial operation in Poland where it sees few growth prospects and instead will invest in other areas, such as the recent acquisition of car loans provider Moneybarn, which does business mainly through brokers.

In the four months since its acquisition Moneybarn returned an adjusted profit before tax of £5.8million – in line with expectations.

Repositioning of the group’s traditional home credit business was almost complete with pre-tax profits 1.4 per cent higher at £103.9 million from .

Peter Crook said: “The repositioning of the home credit business as a smaller but leaner, better-quality, more modern business.”