Consumer loan firm Aiful Corp. reported a sharp year-on-year fall Tuesday in its group net profit for the April-June quarter, which was affected by a government order to suspend operations over coercive loan-collection practices.
The Financial Services Agency ordered Aiful to suspend lending for 20 to 25 days at branches where such practices were found, and for three days at all other Aiful branches in May.
Aiful has about 1,900 branches in Japan.
The consumer lender's quarterly group net profit dropped 27.7 percent from a year earlier to 14.61 billion yen, while consolidated operating revenue rose 0.8 percent to 135.70 billion yen on robust performances at credit sales subsidiary Life Co. and other companies in the group.
The number of new applications for unsecured loans plunged 48.6 percent to 69,000 cases, indicating the coercive collection scandal discouraged consumers from doing business with Aiful.