Point-of-sale finance company ThinkSmart has overcome a fall in operating income by slashing expenses to produce a modest profit for the six months to June.Yesterday, the company reported an interim net profit of A$678,000. This is a turnaround from the $1.5 million loss the company reported for the previous corresponding period, but is well down on the net profit of $2.9 million it reported for the six months to June 2011. Expenses were cut by 15 per cent. This included a 30 per cent reduction in corporate overheads.Another area where the company has worked hard is its credit performance. The asset charge-off rate has fallen from 6.8 per cent in June last year to 4.3 per cent in December and 3.4 per cent in the latest half.The company has been adversely affected by weak retail trading conditions in Australia and the current consumer trend to pay off consumer credit outstandings. Assets under management fell two per cent - from $121 million, at June 2012, to $119 million at the end of the latest half.The Australian business made a pre-tax loss of $910,000.  Sales of the company's core product, RentSmart, were down 28 per cent.The company's strength is its United Kingdom operation, which earns quite a bit less income than the local operation but made a pre-tax profit of $3.9 million. New business volumes in the UK were up 23 per cent.Another strength is Fido, a payment plan product that ThinkSmart launched in February last year. There was $6.1 million of new Fido originations in the half year - an increase of 26 per cent over the previous corresponding period.