Payday lender Wonga hires Tara Kneafsey to manage consumer loans September 9, 2014 Embattled payday lender Wonga yesterday announced the appointment of Latvian insurance expert Tara Kneafsey as its UK consumer loans managing director in a bid to clean up its image. Wonga has been bringing in new management, including new chairman Andy Haste, who joined in July following anger over its sending of threatening letters to customers [...]
Reformed pensions can provide an alternative to the payday lenders August 17, 2014 For millions of households, the most significant risk to financial security lies in their lack of any form of a short-term cash account on which they can draw in the event of an emergency. The consequence of this lack of reserves, for some, is that a financial shock (a suddenly disrupted income, or an unexpected [...]
MPs slam Wonga-style debt collection letters used by Lloyds July 16, 2014 Lloyds sent borrowers letters from its own law firm under a different name for decades, the bank admitted yesterday. MPs attacked the practice as “calculated to mislead” customers, less than a month after it emerged that payday lender Wonga had made up names of law firms to chase up debt repayments. The bank set up [...]
FCA hits payday loan companies with strict caps July 16, 2014 The payday loans industry is expecting to see revenue shrink by 42 per cent if new caps on interest proposed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) come into force. The FCA said it estimated firms would lose £420m annually as a result of its proposals to cap interests on loans at 0.8 per cent per [...]
FCA proposes restrictions on interest charged by payday lenders July 15, 2014 The Financial Conduct Authority has proposed putting severe restrictions on the amount of interest that can be charged by payday lenders. In a bid to ease concerns about high interest rates and excessive total cost of credit, the city regulator has suggested that loan rates are capped at 0.8 per cent per day of [...]
New Wonga chief scraps puppets in bid to clean up its brand July 14, 2014 Newly appointed Wonga chairman Andy Haste wasted no time yesterday in announcing a number of sweeping changes for the controversial payday lender, including the removal of puppets from the firm’s TV advertising. Former RSA Insurance chief executive Haste outlined six goals on Wonga’s website, stating that he needed to “re-present Wonga to the public” – [...]
Wonga appoints former boss of RSA as chair to lead turnaround July 14, 2014 Payday lender Wonga yesterday named former RSA Insurance group chief executive Andy Haste as chairman, who vowed to keep the company in line with tougher rules being imposed the loans industry. Haste replaces former chair and co-founder Errol Damelin, who announced his departure last month. Wonga and other short-term lenders have come under [...]
Wonga advertising puppets axed as new chairman plans overhaul July 14, 2014 New Wonga chairman Andy Haste wasted no time announcing his first task at the helm of the controversial payday lender: Get rid of those disturbing puppets. The first job that Haste, former chief executive at insurance group RSA, will take on as Wonga boss is to undertake a review of how the business operates and [...]
Church of England exorcises its £100,000 indirect stake in Wonga July 10, 2014 The Church of England has sold its indirect stake in payday lender Wonga, worth less than £100,000, ending its embarrassing link to the firm it has repeatedly criticised. In a statement yesterday the Church’s commissioners confirmed that the stake it had held via an investment in a pooled portfolio fund with Accel Partners had [...]
Police probe into Wonga could lead to prison terms June 30, 2014 WONGA staff or ex-employees could face prison if the police investigation into the payday lender leads to successful prosecutions, after lawyers demanded a probe into the firm. Last week the City watchdog ordered Wonga to pay £2.6m in compensation to more than 45,000 customers after it discovered the lender sent threatening letters from made up [...]