Ed Boyle and David Pike of KPMG LLP were appointed as joint administrators (“the Joint Administrators”) of
Elevate Credit International Limited (“ECIL”, or the “Company") on 29 June 2020 (the “Administration”). ECIL
provided consumer loans under the brand “Sunny” and had previously used the brands “1 Month Loan” and
“Quid”.
Shortly prior to the appointment of the Joint Administrators, all new lending ceased.
On 3 October 2020, the Joint Administrators successfully completed the sale of part of ECIL’s book of
outstanding customer loans to Perch Capital Limited (“Perch Capital”).
Asset Collections and Investigations Limited (“ACI”) is a debt collections agency who manage the collection
of outstanding balances, in this instance, on behalf of Perch Capital.
Please note, that ECIL was not sold as a company or legal entity (i.e. by way of a share purchase), and
therefore ECIL remains under the control of the Joint Administrators. In addition, Perch Capital did not
purchase any brands or digital assets, such as the “Sunny” brand, or Sunny domain name, which remain the
property of ECIL.
Customers will no longer be able to make payments to ECIL and any cheques received will be destroyed.
The remaining customer loan book that was not sold to Perch Capital will shortly be written off in full and
no further payments are required to ECIL against these loans with effect from close of business on 2 October
2020. For the avoidance of doubt, any payments made against the outstanding balance of your loan(s) prior to
this point were legally owing to ECIL and ECIL will not refund them.
On or around Monday 5 October the Joint Administrators are contacting all customers whose loan(s) has been
sold and all customers who are having a loan written off to provide further information.
If sufficient funds are available in the Administration for a distribution to be made to unsecured
creditors, which includes customer creditors, there will be an opportunity to submit a redress claim in the
Administration. Further information will be published on the Sunny website in this regard in November 2020
and we encourage you to continue to monitor the Sunny website for updates.
However, when assessing any redress claim that you have, we will take account of any balance adjustment or
write-off that has been made to your account by the Joint Administrators (on which more detail is provided
below). If any balance adjustment or write-off has been made to your account by the Joint Administrators,
you will have been emailed on or around Monday 5 October 2020 with further details and explanation of this.
Further information about the Administration is available in the Joint Administrators’ Proposals, which is
available to download at www.kpmg.co.uk/ecil.
A list of FAQs is provided for your information below. No further information is available at this time.
However, these FAQs will be updated with further information as it becomes available.
The Sunny customer services team remains available for a period of time and may be contacted at
help@sunny.co.uk or by calling 0800 7315 444. However, we anticipate higher than normal level of queries and
therefore there may be some delay in receiving a response. We encourage you to review the below FAQs in the
first instance.
Information about the administration process can be found here.
The Joint Administrators issued their initial Proposals which were deemed approved on 3 September 2020. The
Proposals include details for creditors on the events leading up to the Administration, the Joint
Administrators' proposed approach to the Administration, and other information that the Joint Administrators
are required to provide. These Proposals, together with the Creditor notice of deemed consent of the
Proposals, can be found at
www.kpmg.co.uk/ecil.
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Has my loan been sold?
If your loan(s) has been sold to Perch Capital, you should have received an email from the Joint
Administrators to confirm this on or around Monday 5 October 2020, as well as a subsequent email
from Perch Capital’s representative Asset Collections and Investigations Limited (“ACI”).
If your loan(s) has not been sold, your remaining loan balance will shortly be written off in full.
Please do not make any further payments to ECIL against your Sunny loan(s). You should have received
an email from the Joint Administrators to confirm that no further payments are due to ECIL against
your Sunny loan(s) on or around Monday 5 October 2020.
Please also note that this email does not impact your obligation to continue to pay any outstanding
loan balance owing to a third party debt purchaser. i.e. if you have previously taken out a loan(s)
from ECIL and you were subsequently notified (before ECIL entered administration) that the loan(s)
had been sold by ECIL to a third party debt purchaser, then any amount owing on such loan(s) remains
payable.
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Have Perch Capital bought the ‘Sunny’ brand name?
No. Perch Capital have only purchased part of the loan book. Any brands or digital assets, including
the ‘Sunny’ brand and Sunny domain name, remain the property of ECIL under the control of the Joint
Administrators.
Please note Perch Capital did not purchase ECIL as a company or legal entity (i.e. by way of a share
purchase). ECIL remains in Administration under the control of the Joint Administrators.
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Can you transfer my loan without my permission?
Yes. Under the standard terms and conditions that accompanies all Sunny loans, ECIL can transfer
customer loans to a purchaser without prior consent from the customer.
If your loan(s) has been sold to Perch Capital you should have received an email from ECIL to
confirm this, as well as a subsequent email from Perch Capital’s representative Asset Collections
and Investigations Limited (“ACI”).
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My loan has been sold - What happens to my credit records?
Control of your credit records for any loan sold is transferred from ECIL to Perch Capital. ECIL
shall shortly be reporting to the various credit reference agencies to close your loan record and a
new record will be established by Perch Capital.
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Why have you made a balance adjustment on my account?
The Joint Administrators recognise that there may be some customers who may potentially seek to make
a claim for redress from ECIL.
In line with our understanding of the Financial Ombudsman Service’s (“FOS”) decisions, and bearing
in mind the Financial Conduct Authority’s (“FCA”) rules, we have developed an automated approach to
review the position of ECIL’s current and former customers to identify those who may be potentially
be eligible for a redress related claim (“the Claims Calculator”).
The key factors considered by the Claims Calculator are whether each loan was i) affordable (e.g.
was the customer’s income sufficiently verified by ECIL), ii) sustainable (e.g. had the customer had
more than five Sunny loans without a break in lending) and iii) responsibly lent.
Where outstanding loan balances have been sold to Perch Capital, the Joint Administrators first
applied any potential redress entitlement identified to reduce the outstanding loan balances being
sold, in an attempt to reflect the position if the relevant customers had successfully brought a
claim for redress..
If you believe that you may have a redress entitlement over and above the balance being adjusted (or
written off in full), then, should there be enough funds available in the Administration, the Joint
Administrators will provide an opportunity for customers to make a claim for their review and
assessment at a future time. However, any redress claim that you submit will need to take into
account any balance adjustment (or write-off) that is being made to your account.
Further information regarding the process for making claims in the Administration will be published
on the Sunny website in November 2020 and we encourage you to monitor the website for this update.
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Why have I been notified that my loan is being written off or a balance adjustment has been made now and not yesterday before I made a payment?
Certain balance adjustments have been made to facilitate the sale to Perch Capital and have
therefore been made on the date of the sale.
With effect from the date of the sale, ECIL has also stopped collecting outstanding loan balances in
respect of loans being written off. This is because, following the sale, it is no longer
cost-effective for ECIL to continue its collection activities.
Inevitably, as customer payment dates vary, there will always be a number of customers who made a
payment shortly before their outstanding balance was written off.
ECIL will not refund any payments made against your outstanding loan(s) before the close of business
on 2 October 2020 (other than in the normal course of business, for example where an overpayment has
put the outstanding loan balance into a credit position, or similar circumstances). However, if your
loan is being written off then you will benefit from not having to repay any further amounts.
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Why have you not made a balance adjustment on my account?
In order to facilitate the sale of part of ECIL’s customer loan book to Perch Capital, balance
adjustments have been made in respect of accounts of customers whose loans have been sold to Perch
Capital and where the Joint Administrators have also identified that the relevant customer may have
a potential redress entitlement.
If your loan(s) has not been sold, your outstanding loan balance is being written off in full and
you no longer have to make payments against your outstanding loan(s).
If you believe that you may have a redress entitlement over and above the balance being adjusted or
written off in full, then, should there be enough funds available in the Administration, the Joint
Administrators will provide an opportunity for customers to make a claim at a future time. However,
when assessing any redress claim that you have, we will take account of any balance adjustment or
write-off that has been made to your account.
Further information regarding the process for making claims in the Administration will be published
on the Sunny website in November 2020 and we encourage you to monitor the website for this update.
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My loan is being written-off, am I entitled to a refund on previous payments?
No, any payments made in respect of loan balances that were outstanding prior to the notification of
the write-off of the loan(s) were legally owing to ECIL and ECIL will not refund them (other than in
the normal course of business, for example where an overpayment has put the outstanding loan balance
into a credit position, or similar circumstances). However, where your loan has been written off you
will benefit from not having to repay any further amounts.
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What if I believe I am entitled to a greater amount of redress than the balance adjustment applied before my account was transferred to Perch?
The Joint Administrators believe that the methodology for identifying and calculating potential
affordability-related redress entitlements has been prepared on a prudent basis, and it has been
developed with reference to previous FOS decisions and FCA rules.
However, if you nonetheless believe you may be entitled to redress over and above the balance
adjustment applied to your outstanding loan(s) balance then, if and when the Joint Administrators
determine there are enough funds available to make a distribution to unsecured creditors, which
includes customer creditors, they will provide an opportunity for you to submit a claim in the
Administration.
Please note when assessing any redress claim that you have, we will take into account any balance
adjustment or write off that has been made to your account.
Further information regarding the process for making claims in the Administration will be published
on the Sunny website in November 2020.
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What should I do next?
If your loan(s) has been sold, Perch Capital’s representative Asset Collections and Investigations
Limited (“ACI”) will be in touch very shortly to provide further information on how future payments
should be made. Please do not make any further payment to Sunny. The Sunny bank accounts previously
used for collections are being closed to help prevent any further payments being made.
If your loan(s) has not been sold, please do not make any further payment to Sunny as your loan is
being written off. You do not need to take any further action with regard to your loans with Sunny.
Please also note that this email does not impact your obligation to continue to pay any outstanding
loan balance owing to a third party debt purchaser. i.e. if you have previously taken out a loan(s)
from ECIL and you were subsequently notified (before ECIL entered administration) that the loan(s)
had been sold by ECIL to a third party debt purchaser, then any amount owing on such loan(s) remains
payable.
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Should I continue to repay my loan?
If your loan(s) has been sold, Perch Capital’s representative Asset Collections and Investigations
Limited (“ACI”) will be in touch very shortly to provide further information on how future payments
should be made. For more information or to discuss the repayment of your loan, please contact ACI on
01253 531436 or visit www.assetcollections.co.uk/sunny.
Please do not make any further payment to Sunny.
If your loan(s) has not been sold, please do not make any further payment to Sunny. The Sunny bank
accounts previously used for collections are being closed to help prevent any further payments being
made. You do not need to take any further action with regard to your loans with Sunny.
Please also note that this email does not impact your obligation to continue to pay any outstanding
loan balance owing to a third party debt purchaser. i.e. if you have previously taken out a loan(s)
from ECIL and you were subsequently notified (before ECIL entered administration) that the loan(s)
had been sold by ECIL to a third party debt purchaser, then any amount owing on such loan(s) remains
payable.
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Will I incur further interest and charges on my outstanding loan(s)?
If your loan(s) has been sold to Perch Capital, your existing terms and conditions will continue to
apply, including in relation to the accrual of interest. Please direct any queries in this regard to
ACI.
If your loan(s) has been written off in full, then you no longer have an outstanding loan balance
with ECIL and therefore, no further interest will be incurred or payable.
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I can’t afford to repay my loan – what should I do?
If your loan has been sold to Perch Capital and you are unable to repay it, please contact ACI on
01253 531436 or visit www.assetcollections.co.uk/sunny.
If your loan has not been sold, your remaining loan balance with ECIL will shortly be written off in
full. You should have received an email from the Joint Administrators to confirm this on or around
Monday 5 October 2020.
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Where can I access further information?
If your loan(s) has been sold, for further information on your outstanding loan(s) please contact
ACI on 01253 531436 or visit www.assetcollections.co.uk/sunny.
The FAQs on the Sunny website will continue to be updated from time to time. The Sunny customer
services team remains available for a short period and can be contacted at help@sunny.co.uk or by
calling 0800 7315 444.
Statutory notices, documents and periodic reporting updates relating to the administration
will be published at www.kpmg.co.uk/ecil.
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I made a complaint against ECIL before it entered administration – what happens to my complaint?
Affordability-related complaints and other complaints which have been made against ECIL prior to it
entering administration, and which may result in redress being due from ECIL to a customer, will be
logged and held until the Joint Administrators have determined if there are enough funds available
to pay a distribution to unsecured creditors, which includes customer creditors. Customer creditors
may include customers awaiting a response to their complaint, customers who have received a ‘final
response letter’ from ECIL with an offer of redress but who have not returned it by accepting the
offer, and customers who have taken their complaint to the FOS.
If there are enough funds available to pay a distribution to unsecured creditors, then the Joint
Administrators will determine a process for agreeing creditor claims and provide an opportunity for
claims to be submitted. If you have already lodged a complaint with ECIL which is not fully settled,
the Joint Administrators intend to contact you in November with information on what you need to do
next in order to progress your claim.
If a balance adjustment has been applied to your outstanding loan balance prior to its sale, or your
balance is being written off in full, when assessing any redress claim that you may have, we will
take into account the balance adjustment or write-off that has been made to your account..
Further information regarding the process for making claims in the Administration will be published
on the Sunny website in November 2020 and we encourage you to monitor the website for this update.
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I have accepted an offer of redress but it has not been paid, will I receive a payment?
If you have received an offer of redress prior to the Company entering administration, but have not
yet been paid, unfortunately you will now not be paid due to the Company having entered
administration. Your redress claim will be an unsecured claim against the Company.
If there are enough funds available to pay a distribution to unsecured creditors, then the Joint
Administrators will determine a process for agreeing creditor claims and provide an opportunity for
claims to be submitted. If you have already lodged a complaint with ECIL which is not fully settled,
the Joint Administrators intend to contact you in November with information on what you need to do
next in order to progress your claim.
The Company holds records of customers who have redress claims that have been agreed but have not
yet been paid, and the Joint Administrators intend to contact these customers in due course with
further information relevant to unsecured creditors of the company (which includes customer
creditors). You do not need to take any action at this stage.
Further information regarding the process for making claims in the Administration will be published
on the Sunny website in November 2020 and we encourage you to monitor the website for this update.
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Am I eligible to make an affordability-related redress claim?
If you believe that you were provided with an unaffordable loan(s) by the Company, you may
potentially have an affordability-related redress claim.
If a balance adjustment has been applied to your outstanding loan(s) balance, or your balance has
been written off in full, when assessing any redress claim that you may have, we will take into
account the balance adjustment or write-off that has been made to your account.
Further information regarding the process for making claims in the Administration will be published
on the Sunny website in November 2020 and we encourage you to monitor the website for this update.
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How can I make a claim against ECIL?
Affordability-related complaints and other complaints which have been made against ECIL prior to it
entering administration and which may result in redress being due from ECIL to a customer will be
logged and held until the Joint Administrators have determined if there are enough funds available
to pay a distribution to unsecured creditors, which includes customer creditors.
If there are enough funds available to pay a distribution to unsecured creditors, then the Joint
Administrators will determine a process for agreeing creditor claims and provide an opportunity for
claims to be submitted. If you have already lodged a complaint with ECIL which is not fully settled,
the Joint Administrators intend to contact you in November with information on what you need to do
next in order to progress your claim.
If a balance adjustment has been applied to your outstanding loan(s) balance, or your balance is
being written off in full, when assessing any redress claim that you may have, we will take into
account the balance adjustment or write-off that has been made to your account.
Further information regarding the process for making claims in the Administration will be published
on the Sunny website in November 2020 and we encourage you to monitor the website for this update.
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Do I need to use a claims management company (CMC) to make a claim?
No. If there are enough funds available to pay a distribution to unsecured creditors, the Joint
Administrators will provide an opportunity for you to submit a claim directly to the Company.
Though a CMC can help you submit a claim, the Joint Administrators shall seek to keep any claim
process simple. It is up to you if you want to use one. If you decide to use a CMC, please make sure
you understand the scope and costs of their services before agreeing to use them.
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If I have previously received an affordability-related redress payment from the Company, can I claim again?
You cannot claim twice for the same affordability-related redress entitlement. If you previously
received an affordability-related redress payment from the Company, then the historic loan
agreements that were compensated at the time will not be considered again for affordability-related
redress. If you took out further loans from the Company after your previous redress payment, then if
the Joint Administrators provide an opportunity for customers to make a claim you will be able to
submit a claim for review and assessment by the Joint Administrators in respect of those new loans
if you believe these were unaffordable.
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What if I would like to make a claim but you have written off my balance?
If there are enough funds available to pay a distribution to unsecured creditors, then the Joint
Administrators will determine a process for agreeing creditor claims and provide an opportunity for
claims to be submitted.
When assessing any redress claim that you may have, we will take into account the balance adjustment
or write-off that has been made to your account.
Further information regarding the process for making claims in the Administration will be published
on the Sunny website in November 2020 and we encourage you to monitor the website for this update.
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Will my credit records be updated?
If your loan(s) has been sold to Perch Capital, your credit records are being updated for the
transfer of ownership of the relevant loan(s) from ECIL to Perch Capital.
If your loan(s) has been written off, your credit records are being amended to show that your
loan(s) has been settled in full.
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I still have a problem on my credit file, what should I do?
All updates to customers’ credit files have now been submitted to the relevant Credit Reference
Agencies (“CRA”s) for the period up to end of August 2020. We understand that these changes can take
up to a few weeks to be reflected on your file. Further updates to the CRAs to reflect the sale and
write-off of the outstanding loans will be performed shortly.
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How will redress claims be calculated?
The key factors considered by the Claims Calculator are whether each loan was i) affordable (e.g.
was the customer’s income sufficiently verified by ECIL), ii) sustainability (e.g. has the customer
had more than five Sunny loans without a break in lending) and iii) responsibly lent.
If the Joint Administrators determine that there are likely to be enough funds available to make a
distribution to customers and other unsecured creditors, then ECIL intends to undertake an unsecured
creditor claim adjudication and dividend payment process. Further details of this process, including
more detail on the basis of the Claims Calculator which the Joint Administrators have used to
identify potential redress entitlements, will be provided on the Sunny website in November 2020.
Please be aware that, if you successfully make a claim against the Company, any cash payment that
you receive is highly likely to be very substantially smaller than your accepted claim amount.
This is because the total value of all accepted claims received is likely to exceed the money
available to be shared out among all unsecured creditors of the company (including customer
creditors). The amount of any money available to be shared out to unsecured creditors will not be
known until all of ECIL’s assets have been sold or realised and certain costs and deductions have
been taken into account.
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When will I be contacted further?
The Joint Administrators will provide further updates to ECIL customers in the coming weeks
via the Sunny and KPMG websites.
We encourage you to monitor these websites for further updates.
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When will I receive a payment against my claim?
The Joint Administrators will only commence the assessment of affordability-related redress claims
if and when they determine that there are sufficient funds available to make a distribution to
customers and other unsecured creditors. If your claim is then agreed by the Joint Administrators
you will then be treated as an unsecured creditor and will be entitled to a dividend payment, if
there are enough funds available to pay a dividend.
The funds realised in the Administration are broadly applied in the following order:
The costs of realising assets will be paid first. Any amounts owing to secured and preferential
creditors are then settled, followed by unsecured claims (such as providers of goods and services
and customers’ affordability-related redress claims). If, after paying the costs and amounts due to
the secured creditors, there are insufficient funds to pay all remaining claims in full then
customers and other unsecured creditors will receive a proportion of their claim. It may be the case
that there are no funds available to pay customers and unsecured creditors any dividend at all.
Should enough funds be available to allow a distribution to unsecured creditors, it is not expected
that this distribution would be made until Spring 2021 at the earliest.
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How much will I receive from my claim?
It is highly likely that any payment you receive will be substantially smaller than your accepted
claim amount.
This is because the total value of all accepted claims received is likely to exceed the money
available to be shared out among all unsecured creditors (including customer creditors). The money
available to be shared out will not be known until all of ECIL’s assets have been sold or realised
and certain costs and deductions have been taken into account.
The affairs, business and property of the business are being managed by the Joint Administrators.
Ed Boyle and David Pike are authorised to act as insolvency practitioners by the Institute of Chartered
Accountants in England & Wales.
We are bound by the Insolvency Code of Ethics.
The Officeholders are Data Controllers of personal data as defined by the Data Protection Act 2018. Personal
data will be kept secure and processed only for matters relating to the appointment. For further
information, please see our Privacy policy at –
home.kpmg/uk/en/home/misc/privacy-policy-insolvency-court-appointments.html.
