The market for unsecured consumer loans shrank from 17 trillion yen in March 2008 to 8.7 trillion yen by March 2013 due to the revision of the Money Lending Business Act that was carried out on the back of an increase in interest repayment claims triggered by the Supreme Court decision in 2006 and the introduction of total loan amount control, impacting a large number of consumer finance companies.

However, the market bottomed out in 2014 and recovered to 10.4 trillion yen by March 2018 due to improved business confidence in the Japanese economy and aggressive advertisements by consumer finance companies on TV and online.

On the other hand, in March 2021, the overall market shrank temporarily to 9.4 trillion, partly due to the impact of the COVID-19. Of this amount, loans outstanding by consumer finance companies amounted to 2.5 trillion yen.