On 1st August 2018, the Money Shop stopped giving loans to new or existing customers. Here is the announcement on its website: The Money Shop is part of the Dollar Financial group, who owned two other large payday lending brands, Payday UK and Payday Express. These both stopped lending in October 2017. The Money Shop is not going out of business, it is carrying on with its other travel … [Read more...]
Debt news and policy
Debt Camel articles on what's happening in the world of personal debt in Britain.
For my collections of other news items, please see Weekly News Summaries.
Payday loan refunds push Wonga to brink of insolvency
Sky News reported on Saturday that Wonga has received an emergency £10million cash injection to save it from insolvency. The latest fundraising is said to value the company at only $30m. Sky reports that Wonga's CEO, Tara Kneafsey, told directors that there has been an increase in the volume of complaints about loans made before the FCA introduced new payday regulations in 2014, when Wonga … [Read more...]
Vanquis ROP (3) – refunds are too low – it’s time to complain
Have you had an email from Vanquis saying it is refunding you some money? Some people are being given tens of pounds when I think they should get hundreds. And people getting hundreds should be getting thousands! There were no details of the refund in the email sent to you, so there is no way for you to check it is accurate. In February, the FCA told Vanquis to give refunds to a million … [Read more...]
Current debt-related consultations eg from FCA
There are often a lot of consultations underway that are related to debt or debt advice matters. Few people in the debt advice world have time to respond to them all, but here is my list of the interesting ones, in order of the Closing Date. The brief summary of each consultation is mine, reflecting what I think are the most important areas. I try to keep it up-to-date. When a consultation … [Read more...]
Introducing a cap on the cost of Rent To Own lenders such as Brighthouse
The FCA's Consultation on High Cost Credit 18/12 is clear about the harm caused by Brighthouse and other rent-to-own (RTO) lenders: Our findings make clear that the costs of RTO are high, sometimes exceptionally so. RTO users are paying an average premium of 3 or 4 times the typical retail price of goods. At the extreme, this can be nearly 5 or 6 times ... We think it is highly likely that harm … [Read more...]
Vanquis ROP(2) – over limit charges not included in the refunds
I have asked Vanquis how they are calculating the FCA-ordered refund of the interest that people have paid because of their ROP purchases. One thing that Vanquis have explained is that they are not including a refund of any additional over the limit charges. This won't affect everyone getting a refund but it will be important for some people. Why aren't Vanquis refunding these? Vanquis … [Read more...]
Vanquis ROP (1) – are the refunds being calculated properly?
People are starting to get refunds from Vanquis for the extra interest they paid if they had the Repayment Option Plan (ROP). That's the good news. But some of the amounts being refunded seem lower than had been expected. This is the first article in a series looking at this problem. The second article is Vanquis ROP (2) – over limit charges not included. This doesn't explain why the … [Read more...]
Rolling out a Universal Disaster – it’s time to stop
Today the National Audit Office has published Rolling out Universal Credit. This is the NAO's first report on Universal Credit (UC) since 2014. It makes grim reading for everyone: the DWP; taxpayers who are funding a huge bill for changes which may not achieve any useful purpose; local authorities, housing associations, food banks, benefits and debt advisers who are having to support … [Read more...]
News snippets about high cost credit
This page brings together news items about various types of high-cost lending in Britain, including payday loans, guarantor loans, doorstep lending, logbook loans, rent to own and other forms of high-cost credit. My comments on the latest FCA High Cost Credit Review reports in June 2018, which cover many of the different types of lending covered on this page (with the regrettable exceptions of … [Read more...]
FCA high cost credit review – great headlines, not so much action
The FCA published two High Cost Credit Review consultation papers published yesterday: rent-to-own, home-collected credit, catalogue credit and store cards, and alternatives to high-cost credit; overdrafts. Although these got some great headlines - the word crackdown appeared frequently - I think it is fair to say that most debt policy campaigners have been disappointed by the proposals … [Read more...]
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