John Lewis to let customers borrow up to £35,000

Retailer strikes deal with digital bank Zopa to offer direct personal loans

John Lewis is bringing back personal loans for its customers as the retail giant pushes further into finance.
The retailer said it had struck a deal with digital bank Zopa to start directly offering personal loans on its website, with customers able to access between £1,000 and £35,000 in less than two hours.
It means John Lewis customers will be able to get loans directly from the partnership for the first time in years, following the end of an earlier tie-up with HSBC.
John Lewis said the term of the new loans would range from one year to seven years, with customers making repayments in fixed monthly amounts.
It comes as the latest move by John Lewis to bolster its finance arm, John Lewis Money, at a time when other retailers have been scaling back their banking services. Earlier this year, Sainsbury’s sold its banking arm to NatWest.
The John Lewis Partnership already offers customers credit cards and insurance. It also lets customers use a “buy now, pay later” option for certain nursery and electrical products when they spend between £500 and £1,500.
Its outgoing chief executive, Nish Kankiwala, last year suggested the company would be looking at expanding its finance business, potentially looking at more buy-now, pay-later services.
Mr Kankiwala said: “In the younger generation, people expect it.”
However, more recently, the partnership announced a shift in focus, saying earlier this year that it was prioritising stores again and ditching targets over diversification.
The partnership’s former chairman Dame Sharon White had previously set an aim of making 40pc of the group’s profits in areas outside of the high street by 2030. She earmarked housing and financial services as key areas of focus.
Earlier this year, John Lewis scrapped the targets and said the partnership would instead have a “relentless focus” on retail again. It suggested it might look at more financial services and rental homes in the longer term.
Mr Kankiwala said: “From a commercial perspective, [diversifying into rental homes] is a really important long-term play”.
He said financial services was “part of supporting our retail business” and was crucial in helping “dampen the cyclicality of the retail sector”.
The strategy shake-up at the John Lewis Partnership has come at a time of major upheaval at the company, which after the pandemic was battling significant losses. The partnership has stripped £300m in costs out of the business and said last September that it was planning to cut a further £600m.
The turnaround push has recently started to yield results, with the partnership returning to a profit earlier this year.
The decision to focus back on retail has come amid change at the head of the business. Dame Sharon stepped down as its chairman last month. She has been replaced by Jason Tarry, the former Tesco UK boss.