Tag Archives: payday lenders

Conference: Jo Swinson on payday lenders

By Jo Swinson MP | Sat 14th September 2013 - 7:04 pm

Speaking to Scottish Liberal Democrat autumn conference in Glasgow today, Scottish Liberal Democrat MP and Minister of State for Business and Consumer Affairs Jo Swinson set out how she was taking steps to build a stronger economy and a fairer society by tackling unscrupulous payday lenders.

In her speech to conference, Jo Swinson said:

Since becoming the Minister responsible last year, I’ve tackled this issue head on.

Last December we published research on the problems and options for action.

In March we saw the Office of Fair Trading announce a crackdown amidst evidence of the widespread failure of the industry to treat customers fairly.

Opinion: Payday loans – a never ending debt

By Tahir Maher | Mon 13th May 2013 - 12:43 pm

South Central Region Liberal Democrats have discussed and passed a motion against Pay Day Loans at our Regional conference in the autumn of 2012. The notion of such loans is valid: provide a small short term loan for those in need to help them through immediate financial hardship. Unfortunately, exploitation is what we get.

Here are some facts about these loans:
• Which estimates over 800,000 UK households have taken out payday loans;
• The Consumer Credit Counselling Service says over 2,000 of their clients in 2012 …

Posted in Op-eds | 31 Comments

Jo Swinson MP writes…Consumers need to be protected from the predatory behaviour of payday lenders

By Jo Swinson MP | Wed 13th March 2013 - 9:28 am

Every MP has seen tragic cases of constituents struggling with debt problems.

Like Mrs S, whose daughter was granted hundreds of pounds of loans, despite not being in employment and suffering from mental health problems. That young woman is now in arrears with 2 different payday lenders. She is being charged high default fees and her situation is getting worse each day.

The Coalition Government is determined to make sure that consumers are properly protected and that payday lenders stop taking advantage of vulnerable people. The evidence of the scale of unscrupulous behaviour by payday lenders and the impact on …