Latitude Financial Services (shortened to Latitude Financial or Latitude) is an Australian

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

company with headquarters in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, also doing business in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

under the name Gem Finance. Latitude’s core business is in consumer finance through a variety of services including unsecured

personal loans In finance, unsecured debt refers to any type of debt or general obligation that is not protected by a guarantor, or collateralized by a lien on specific assets of the borrower in the case of a bankruptcy or liquidation or failure to meet the t ...

credit cards A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

, car loans, personal insurance and interest free retail finance. it had around a 6% share of Australia’s personal lending market making it biggest non-bank lender of consumer credit in Australia.

History

Latitude began as the Australian and New Zealand personal finance and motor dealer finance operations of

Australian Guarantee Corporation Founded in 1921 as Australian Guarantee Company to initially provide finance for purchasers of smaller household items, it progressed into financing motor vehicles and was renamed as Australian Guarantee Corporation (AGC) in 1925. AGC was Australi ...

acquired from

Westpac Westpac Banking Corporation, known simply as Westpac, is an Australian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered at Westpac Place in Sydney, New South Wales. Established in 1817 as the Bank of New South Wales, it ...

in 2002 by

GE Capital GE Capital is the financial services division of General Electric. The company currently only runs one division, GE Energy Financial Services. It had provided additional services in the past; however, those units were sold between 2013 and 2018 ...

. GE Capital sold its Australian and New Zealand business in 2015 to a consortium led by

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

KKR KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strateg ...

and Värde Partners. The business was renamed Latitude Financial Services.

References

{{KKR Companies based in Melbourne Financial services companies established in 2015 Financial services companies of Australia Kohlberg Kravis Roberts companies 2015 establishments in Australia