In 2018, when Wonga went into administration, people started asking isn't there some kind of guarantee system that would step in if Wonga fails? Won't the FSCS help? This has become more important every year since then, with most of the major payday lenders failing, including the Money Shop, QuickQuid, Sunny and Myjar. From 2020, other sorts of high cost lenders have also being failing, … [Read more...]
Articles for debt advisers
2021 – the Debt Camel review of the year
This is my review of the major events of 2021 in the debt sector. It doesn't go into detail about what happened, it mainly looks at how well the year went in practice and why bits of it didn't go better... Inevitably it concentrates on the areas that most interested me! And my ratings are just a bit of fun. I'll divide them into groups: FCA-related; Insolvency Service-related; external … [Read more...]
The 2021 IVA protocol – what has changed & will it stop mis-selling?
The IVA Protocol 2021 was published in April 2021. This replaces the old 2016 Protocol which should not be used for new IVAs after 1 August 2021. The terms of IVAs already in progress are not affected by the new version. The new Protocol aims to be easier to understand for people in debt - for example "debtor" has been replaced by "consumer" and it has been put into the typical "gov.uk … [Read more...]
Good news – higher DRO limits from end June 2021!
UPDATE 2024 In the budget in March 2024, new changes to DRO limits and an abolition of the DRO fee were announced. These increase the total allowable debt in a DRO further to £50,000 and double the increases in the value of a car allowed to £4,000. The full DRO eligibility criteria are set out in What is a DRO UPDATE 10 May 2021 The Insolvency Service has announced the new limits that … [Read more...]
StepChange redundancies & the funding of debt advice
On 22 April 2021, StepChange announced that it was proposing to cut its staff by 10%. It has started the process of consultations about 140-17o redundancies. To many people this will sound bizarre. In October 2020, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that 20 million people have seen their financial situation worsen because of Covid-19 and 7.7million people saw it worsen a lot. The FCA … [Read more...]
Kerrigan v Elevate Credit – an “unfair relationship”
The judgment in the Kerrigan & others v Elevate Credit International Ltd was published on 5 August 2020. Elevate Credit International was a large UK payday lender, trading as Sunny. Kerrigan and the other eleven claimants were Sunny customers who had made affordability complaints to Sunny through a claims company. The claims company brought the case and selected six claimants; Sunny … [Read more...]
MaPS to give £38 million more for debt advice – it’s badly needed!
The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) has announced an increase in its budget for debt support in England in 2020/21 by £38million. And an additional £5.9 million is being allocated to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This new money is in addition to the existing MaPS budget for debt advice of £64 million. It will come from a combination of government funds, reallocated MaPS budget and … [Read more...]
Coronavirus & the reform of Personal Insolvency in England
This article builds on the arguments I put forward in Coronavirus – how the debt advice sector should be planning, looking at one area that needs to be tackled urgently - personal insolvency. Coronavirus will cause a large increase in the numbers of people who should choose insolvency over the next couple of years. I am not trying to predict how many, but it is likely to be large enough to … [Read more...]
Coronavirus – how the debt advice sector should be planning
As lockdown is gradually phased out and furlough payments eventually stop, many people will not be able to return to their pre-Coronavirus situation of being able to manage their debts and bills. Now is the time the debt advice sector should be considering how to prepare for the large demand it may face and what may need to change. We don't know how many people will have problems We don't … [Read more...]
Debt Advice – 2019 did not go well – what will happen in 2020?
Many annual reviews say the year has gone by so fast. But it seems like a very long while since I wrote my review of Debt Advice in 2018. 2019 has been very difficult for debt advice. There have been few bright spots (apart from affordability complaints), a lot of delays to policy decisions being taken and an ever-worsening benefits environment for our clients. 2019 - what happened & … [Read more...]