Asda credit card firm Jaja faces 15 per cent loan interest as debt pile swells
The company behind the Asda credit card has added to its debt pile after posting a widening loss.
Jaja Finance, which operates the supermarket’s card alongside its own credit card services, has drawn down nearly £50m from a debt facility since March, for which it pays an eye-watering 15 per cent annual interest rate. That’s in addition to the £42m it drew down from the £100m facility last year.
The firm posted a pre-tax loss of £35.8m for 2025, a jump of more than 30 per cent compared to the previous year, while revenue rose six per cent to £12.4m. That means the business now pays more in debt interest than its entire annual turnover.
“The company is in the scale-up phase and has incurred losses since inception. It has been reliant historically on investment from its parent company… to meet its short-term working capital and long-term capital needs as well as to meet its other obligations including FCA capital adequacy requirements,” Jaja said in a statement.
The firm put the loss down to “continued investment in operational infrastructure, customer growth and costs of acquiring and servicing the customers”.
During the year the company also tapped its shareholders for another £42m in equity investment during the year “to fund operational activities”.
Issa brothers snap up Jaja
Holborn-based Jaja Finance was founded in 2015 before the billionaire Issa brothers acquired a majority stake in the business together with TDR in 2021. The firm began offering credit cards on behalf of Asda in 2022 after the investment group bought the supermarket from Walmart.
The following year, Jaja offered £20 in free Asda rewards vouchers to new customers. Zuber Issa has since sold his share to TDR.
Jaja’s shares have fallen by more than 90 per cent in since hitting their peak, according to secondary trades on private markets platform .
Jaja’s debts are managed by another company owned by a group called Pana Finance, which raises wholesale debt via the Guernsey-based International Stock Exchange.
In October, Jaja said it had “substantially advanced” but not yet completed a new debt structure, dubbed the “Falcon Master Trust”, which it had hoped to finalise as soon as the end of the month.
But the firm now says it “elected not to proceed” with the refinancing and has instead embarked on a new financing plan, dubbed “Project Ulysses,” to provide “further flexibility in how it accesses and structures funding over the medium term.”
Jaja’s parent, Jersey-based Ray Fintech, was previously known as Phantom Investments but was renamed in 2024 after MPs described the name as “synonymous with lies, deception and deceit”.
Asda company secretary Helen Selby said of the name: “I see it as a word. I don’t look beyond it. I wouldn’t not choose it.”