PRA Group, Inc. PRAA

Competitive advantage analysis · financial-services

Lender Specialized
Overall moat score
28/100
Developing

About PRA Group, Inc.

PRA Group, Inc., a financial services company, engages in the purchase, collection, and management of portfolios of nonperforming loans worldwide. The company purchases accounts that are primarily unpaid obligations of individuals owed to credit originators. It also purchases and collects nonperforming loans, which are sold by credit originators when they choose not to pursue, or have been unsuccessful in, collecting … Full PRAA analysis →

Competitive advantage assessment

Key risks

  • Returns Squeezed by Funding Costs Returns are weak for a debt-funded lender (profitability score 0.14).
  • Thin Equity Cushion Equity cushion is thin (score 0.29).

The dashed ring is the peer median. Defense scores are percentile ranks against peers, so 50 is roughly the typical company in this group.

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Funding & Return Stability

Weak
20

Where PRAA ranks in Credit Services

PRA Group, Inc. ranks #40 of 48 scored companies in Credit Services by moat score — the top 83%. The widest moat in the group is Qifu Technology, Inc (QFIN) at 77/100.

Moat scores for companies ranked near PRAA in Credit Services
# Company Moat score Rating
36 Yiren Digital Ltd. YRD 35/100 Developing
37 Upstart Holdings, Inc. UPST 34/100 Developing
38 Lufax Holding Ltd LU 29/100 Developing
39 Sentage Holdings Inc. SNTG 29/100 Developing
40 PRA Group, Inc. PRAA 28/100 Developing
41 Old Market Capital Corporation OMCC 24/100 Weak
42 Senmiao Technology Limited AIHS 23/100 Weak
43 Open Lending Corporation LPRO 22/100 Weak
44 Dunxin Financial Holdings Limit DXF 18/100 Weak

See every Banks & Lenders company ranked by moat score →

How PRAA scores on the Lender Specialized defenses

Funding & Return Stability

Score 20 · 22% of the moat score

A lender without deposits buys all of its funding, so its first test is whether the business still earns a decent return when that funding gets dearer.

Lending Advantage

Score 28 · 18% of the moat score

Outside banking, a lending advantage usually comes from origination: a channel or a data edge that finds good borrowers more cheaply than rivals, or a niche such as subprime auto, student loans or agency mortgages where experience in underwriting and servicing is hard to copy.

Capital Strength

Score 20 · 20% of the moat score

Without deposit insurance or a central-bank backstop, equity is what keeps a lender in business when its lenders get nervous.

Cost Discipline

Score 25 · 16% of the moat score

Origination, servicing and collections are largely fixed-cost operations, so scale and automation decide how much of the spread survives to the bottom line.

Revenue Diversification

Score 56 · 14% of the moat score

A lender that earns only on the spread of one product is exposed to that product's cycle and to the market that funds it.

Risk Management

Score 26 · 10% of the moat score

Credit losses at a non-bank lender arrive late and all at once, and with borrowed funding they can turn into a liquidity problem in weeks.

How each Lender Specialized defense is measured, in full →

Understanding PRAA's moat

What is PRA Group, Inc.'s moat score?

PRA Group, Inc. (PRAA) scores 28 out of 100 on the StatsAlpha Moat Map, which rates its competitive advantage as developing. It ranks #40 of 48 scored companies in Credit Services, the top 83%. The score is a weighted composite of 6 competitive defenses, each measured against industry peers of 47 companies in Credit Services. Its strongest defense is Revenue Diversification (56/100) and its weakest is Capital Strength (20/100).

How does PRA Group, Inc. compare with other Credit Services companies?

PRA Group, Inc. ranks #40 of 48 scored companies in Credit Services by moat score. The widest moat in Credit Services is Qifu Technology, Inc (QFIN) at 77/100. The companies ranked closest are Sentage Holdings Inc. (SNTG) at 29 just above it and Old Market Capital Corporation (OMCC) at 24 just below it.

How is the moat score calculated?

Each company is scored with an industry-specific template — Lender Specialized in this case, chosen because the defenses that matter to a bank are not the ones that matter to a software company. Every defense combines several financial signals, and each signal is measured as a percentile against a peer group of 47 companies in Credit Services. The defenses are then weighted to produce the overall score out of 100.

Why is PRA Group, Inc. scored with the Lender Specialized template?

Card and instalment lenders, mortgage originators and mortgage REITs make money the way a bank does, by earning more on what they lend than they pay for the money they lend, but they do not take deposits. They borrow in the debt markets instead: securitisations, warehouse lines, repo and bonds, money that has to be refinanced and repriced as rates move. The Lender template scores what decides whether such a business lasts: how well its returns hold up as funding costs change, what it lends against, how much equity stands behind the book, and whether it has been pricing credit honestly.

Which competitive defenses are measured for PRA Group, Inc.?

The Lender Specialized template measures 6 defenses, and PRAA scores: Funding & Return Stability (20), Lending Advantage (28), Capital Strength (20), Cost Discipline (25), Revenue Diversification (56), Risk Management (26). Each is scored independently as a percentile against peers, so a company can be strong on one and weak on another — the overall score reflects how those defenses are weighted for this industry.

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