The UK needs to get a grip on legal loan sharks
The Financial Services Bill, now in its report stage in the House of Lords, is the subject of much heated debate to decide what amendments, if any, to the bill will be carried over. One of the...
View ArticlePayday lenders buying personal details at £60 a head
Recently I spoke at a meeting where I asked those in attendance to raise their hands if they had had experience of a text message or an email from a payday lender offering them an expensive loan at...
View ArticleWhile we wait for action on payday lenders, can Catholic Social Teaching show...
The charity StepChange have recently reported that twice as many people who sought their help with debts in 2012 had payday loans out compared with 2011. Reports like this remind us that change is...
View ArticleWhile payday didn’t cause the financial crisis, it does benefit from it
Today the Financial Conduct Authority will take over from the Office of Fair Trading to become the regulator of the consumer credit industry. This includes oversight of over 50,000 businesses and,...
View ArticleThe FCA cap on payday loans: acting where the market has failed
The proposed cap means that if someone pays back a £100 loan within 30 days they would pay a maximum of £24 in charges Today the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the regulator that takes care of the...
View ArticlePayday loan broker firms: the next poverty scandal
For good reason payday lending has been subject to considerable scrutiny, but there’s another problem to solve: that of broker firms selling credit applications to the highest bidding lenders There’s a...
View ArticleStruggling with payday loans is still on the rise
People struggling on payday loans has risen by 42 per cent in the last year – the industry still needs to be reformed After scandals relating to adverts on children’s TV, selling loans to people who...
View ArticlePayday lenders: tougher rules and price caps are welcome. But more is needed
The FCA had an opportunity to fix a broken market. It didn’t take it The news with payday lending this morning is, well, that there is no news. Or rather, what we thought was going to be the case with...
View ArticlePayday lenders: why aren’t consumers shopping around for their loans?
At the beginning of the year there was a major victory for consumer advocates who wanted to see increased regulation over the payday loans industry, including the implementation of a price cap to...
View ArticleAnother warning for firms that profit from financial exploitation
With today’s news about Cash Genie facing a £20m redress bill, the payday lender chickens really have come home to roost. For many reasons this is a victory for campaigners. Earlier in the year I was...
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