Financial Conduct Authority

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, the case of a man who defaulted on a payday loan of £120 and ended up owing £1,800 was raised by Chris Evans MP, my successor in the other place. The payday loan company in question made 330 attempts to take money from his bank account and charged him £5 on each occasion. They further demanded £178 in interest charges. Some of the tactics employed by the payday loan companies would shame the mafia. Is it not time that we treated them like the mafia, as criminals?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, last week the Financial Conduct Authority published its first attempt to deal with the problem that the noble Lord raises. It is proposing that it should be possible only to roll over a loan twice and that if a consumer has a CPA with a loan shark—sorry, if it is a loan shark, it probably does not have any CPA—or an entirely reputable company, the number of payments that will be able to be taken under such an authority will be reduced to two. This will therefore deal pretty comprehensively with the specific type of issue raised by the noble Lord.