Considering how variable UK retail sales and consumer confidence surveys have been since the start of this year, few people would have put money on store card and retail lender Secure Trust Bank (STB) being one of the best-performing stocks in the market.

Shares in the Solihull-based firm have trounced the FTSE All Share with a 236% advance to a two-year high of £12 as of the time of writing.

Admittedly, this follows a vertiginous fall in the stock price from 800p to less than 400p at the tail end of 2024 after the firm warned it was taking longer than hoped to recover value from excess levels of defaulted loans in its vehicle finance business and it would have to take a £10 million to £15 million provision.

That led to a round of broker downgrades to 2024 earnings, but in the event underlying profit was better than expected, motor finance charges were just £6.9 million and the bank reiterated its medium-term target of a 14% to 16% RoE (return on equity).

The company announced earlier this year it would stop new vehicle lending and put the existing business into run-off to improve its RoE, which gave the shares a further boost. 

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