Debt news and policy Archives

Debt news and policy

Debt Camel articles on what's changing - and what ought to change - in the world of personal debt in Britain.

If you are interested in a specific area, look at: High cost credit news & policy and Insolvency news & policy.

Amigo’s new Scheme – approved by the Court

UPDATE the Scheme is now live After the court approved the Amigo scheme in May 2022, the Scheme is now live. The deadline for making claims has now passed. See Amigo’s Scheme – waiting for claims to be decided for details. UPDATE on the result of the voting Amigo announced on 13 May that c. 89% of people voting had voted in favour of the new Business Scheme. the next stage in the … [Read more...]

Vanguard, The IVA Adviser, QIS – all failed in 2022

Three large IVA firms failed in 2002: Vanguard Insolvency, which was wound up in May "in the public interest; The IVA Adviser, went into administration in August; QIS went into administration in November. Vanguard was closed after being investigated by the Insolvency Service On 13 May 2022, the Insolvency Service announced that Vanguard Insolvency had been wound up "in the public … [Read more...]

BrightHouse in administration – unlikely to be any money for refunds

UPDATE - in April 2022 the administrators said there was unlikely to be any money to pay any refunds to customers. See below. On 20 March 2020, BrightHouse went into administration. BrightHouse sold electrical appliances, furniture, computers and mobiles on hire purchase. Its customers made weekly payments, sometimes described as "rent-to-own". Some 172,000 people were buying an item from … [Read more...]

QuickQuid administration is paying 53.5p in the £

Payments - UPDATE - 25 April 2022 Administrators have started sending emails to everyone with an upheld claim telling them what they will be paid. "The Joint Administrators are now in a position to declare a first and final dividend of 53.5p in the £" The average claim value is c £1,700. Someone with that claim value will get a payout of about £910. The payout details are given in the … [Read more...]

More than a third of IVAs fail – and this may get worse

This post was written based on statistics published in 2022. Since then, statistics have been complicated by the special measures during COVID that temporarily prevented many IVAs from failing. Statistics published in early 2024 show: one in three (33%) IVAs that started between 2016 and 2018 failed of IVAs that started in 2022, 5.6% failed in the first year. This was about the same as … [Read more...]

Why the FSCS doesn’t cover payday and other lenders

In 2018, when Wonga went into administration, people started asking why the Financial Ombudsman (FOS) can't still look at Wonga complaints? And if FOS can't, is there is a guarantee system that would step in if Wonga fails, such as the FSCS? This has become more important every year since then, with most of the major payday lenders failing, including the Money Shop, QuickQuid, Sunny and … [Read more...]

ICL / Money Shop Scheme ends

A first payment of 4.31p in the £ was paid in May/June 2021. A second, much smaller payment of 0.65p in the £ is being paid on 14 or 18 January 2022. If you do not receive this second payment, see below for what to do. Background to the Scheme This "Scheme of Arrangement" covers borrowers from the ICL brand names, Money Shop, Payday UK and Payday Express, who were given … [Read more...]

Amigo proposes a second Scheme – but is it fairer?

UPDATE - in May 2022, the court approved the new Amigo Scheme. See Amigo's Scheme for details On 13 December 2021, Amigo proposed its new Scheme of Arrangement. The Practice Statement Letter (PSL) is a 21-page overview of the new Scheme. The numbers in the PSL have now changed Amigo says: We hope a successful new Scheme will also allow a changed Amigo, under a new management team, … [Read more...]

Amigo – no second Scheme before April at the earliest

On 29 November 2021, Amigo published its results for the six months ended 30 September 2021. Amigo's first Scheme of Arrangement was rejected by the Court in May. Since then, Amigo has been trying to come up with a new Scheme that is fairer to the customers given unaffordable loans. Amigo says: "the proposed contribution to the new Scheme will be significantly increased from that of the … [Read more...]

Bank accounts for all sorts of bad credit problems, even bankruptcy

In 2016 the major UK banks all introduced new "basic bank accounts". One of the main aims was to widen bank account access to groups of people who have found it difficult or impossible to open an account: people who have gone bankrupt previously found it very hard to get a bank account; people in an IVA, DRO or debt management need to change bank accounts and have the overdraft on their … [Read more...]