Much attention has recently been given to the growth of payday lending and with very good reason.
In the first quarter of 2009/10, across the UK, just 1% of Citizens Advice Bureau debt casework clients had at least one payday loan. But by the same quarter of 2012/13 the figures show 10% of their debt casework had at least one payday loan. Similarly, in November 2012 the debt charity StepChange reported that the proportion of their clients with payday loans had soared, from 3.7% in 2009, to 17% in 2012.
This growth in incredibly expensive debt is of course the legal end of the market. We should never forget that on top of the growth of payday lending there has been a growth in illegal lending by loan sharks. To give some indication of the growth of loan sharks it is worth noting that research from Liverpool John Moores University suggests that one in twenty low-income borrowers in London, that have been refused credit, have then turned to a loan shark.
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