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According to the Financial Inclusion Centre thinktank, during the austerity years between 20, Bright House’s gross profits more than trebled from £62.8m to £192m, as customer numbers more than doubled from 125,300 to 276,200.And yet when Nothoizile Kombe exits the store in Lewisham, south-east London, it becomes clear that all is not quite what it seems at Bright House – at least not for its customers.“The rates they charge the poor,” she says, the feisty laughter not quite hiding her frustration, “are extortionate.” The 25-year-old fast food worker, by her own admission “struggling” on the minimum wage, had asked about a mobile phone.The idea, of course, is that Bright House provides the “rent-to-own” option of small weekly payments for those who can’t afford to buy outright or whose low credit-ratings stop them getting “pay later” deals at other stores.It’s just that Ms Kombe – and, it has to be said, a fair few others – see it rather differently. “The poor have someone exploiting them over and over and over again – and Bright House is part of that.” And yet, as we now know thanks to the revelations about offshore funds in the leaked “Paradise Papers”, Bright House is where the Queen, or perhaps more accurately her financial advisers, ended up investing some of her private wealth.