Handy for the estate agents of Hoe Street when the commissions aren't rolling in and the nearby Collins Bookmakers when the gee-gees are just being what gee-gees always are, at 234 High St, Harvey and Thompson Pawnbrokers provide a full range of services for the 'creditally challenged'. They make a handsome living cashing cheques (actually, banks do this - what they mean is doing it for a large fee for people who can't get bank accounts); providing 'payday advances' for people whose own bosses don't know or trust them enough to perform this service without charging exorbitant rates of interest; and providing various forms of unsecured credit for people on very low wages, such as a thing which they describe as a Kwikloan. KwikLoan is a loan offered over a
12 month period for loan values up to £750, although the average is closer to £600. H & T earns approximately £300 gross interest on a £500 KwikLoan over a 12 month period.

In 2006, around 60% of customers were female, those employed were mainly full-time in the service sector, low paid and reliant on state benefit for income support. Over 70% had bank accounts but over one third did not use one regularly.

As the biggest sign of all makes clear, (the three balls hanging out in the street), a large part of their business involves pawnbroking. They also buy gold. The windows contain a number of interesting items of gold which have come to be on sale as second-hand jewelry. It is what Harvey and Thompson call a 'fabulously unique range of jewellery that could not be replicated anywhere in the world with pieces that reflect the unique person that you are'. Some is ugly, much is kitsch, and all of it tells a story.

Established in 1897, this firm is the largest pawnbrokers in the UK, with 93 outlets. From 1992 to 2004 they were owned by Cash America Inc., until Rutland Partners LLP, (a private equity firm which is a vehicle for 30 institutional and private investors from the UK, Europe and North America) helped Chief Executive John Nichols lead a buy-out. Their brokers were Numis Securities Limited, a firm whose Chief Executive usually projects himself as an international wheeler-dealer rubbing shoulders with exotic potentates or our nation's great and good rather than Walthamstow pawnbrokers. But business makes strange bedfellows.

Local competition comes from Oakam, Fish Brothers, By Design, Chain Reaction and Capital Gold. Next door to Selinah Debrah (UK).

(Tel: 020 8521 8156 Fax: 020 8503 7620)