Wonga attributeed the drop in revenue to a reduction in UK consumer lending volumes following the implementation of stricter lending criteria and the introduction of the regulatory price cap.
Operating costs fell to £125.5m (2014: £151.4m), in line with a major restructuring programme to reduce costs.
In its financial results, Wonga admitted that while it predicts 2016 to also be loss-making, it will "be considerably less so than in 2015".
Andy Haste, Group Chairman, said that he expects 2016 to "mark a turning point" in its financial performance, with the Group making "real progress towards creating a sustainable business with an accepted place in financial services".
Haste added:
“We continued to focus on changing our culture to ensure customers are at the heart of our business, while strengthening our financial position. We have embedded good governance and brought in a new, experienced leadership team, overhauled our approach to credit risk, continued to improve our relationships with key stakeholders and launched new products to meet customer demand. We’re pleased with the progress we have made and were delighted to be granted authorisation by the Financial Conduct Authority earlier this year.
“Moving into 2016, our plans included achieving UK authorisation, raising debt funding and starting to roll out new products. Having achieved these, and with further funding planned for later this year, we’re now in a position to move back into growth in 2016 and expect to return to profit in 2017."
Paul Miles, Wonga Group CFO, commented:
“We said last year that our 2015 results would reflect what would be another tough year in Wonga’s transformation and the numbers are in line with our plans. Group revenues declined by 64% to £77.3m, driven principally by a significant but expected reduction in lending volumes globally, down from £0.9bn in 2014 to ££0.4bn in 2015.
“As a result of changes to our lending practices, and in line with our commitment to put customers at the heart of what we do, our Group principal default rate fell to 4.4% in 2015 from 7.4% a year earlier. In the UK, the rate fell from 6.6% to 2.8% over the same period.
“Supporting our drive towards a sustainable business model, we launched a major restructuring in February 2015 to remove £25m of costs over two years. We achieved that target ahead of schedule and will continue to look for opportunities to find efficiencies while investing to deliver good customer outcomes."
