Cash Converters is working past its days as a purveyor of payday loans and producer of sequential corporate losses, to reposition as a lender of higher value loans, weighed down with less baggage.It has refashioned its financial services, or lending, arm as one "with a continued focus on compliance and responsible lending," to employ the delicate language of its half-year briefing.The target market is now higher income, lower risk borrowers looking for loans in a range from A$2000 to $5000, Cash Converters said, labelling the segment "medium amount credit contracts".Backing away from its traditional short-term, small value lending niche resulted in a slump in the loan book, to $86 million from $116 million over one year.Write-offs lifted to $9.7 million from $7.6 million over a year. The firm said these bad debts "predominantly related to loans written prior to the changes to [its] lending rules coming into effect in April 2016."Cash Converters said it was "confident that the changes to our collections practices and the improved lending rules being implemented will show an improvement in bad debts in 2018 and beyond."The reduction in lending volumes from April 2016, described as"expected" by Cash Converters, dragged EBITDA for personal loans to $23.6 million over the half, compared with $30.2 million for the same period in 2015.A number of new faces are now working at Cash Converters to implement its new strategy. In January, the company announced that Peter Cumins would move from chief executive to a role of executive deputy chair, "with primary responsibility for driving potential growth of the international franchising business."It promoted Mark Reid from the role of CEO Australia to the role of group CEO. Two new directors joined the board;  Ellie Comerford and Andrea Waters.