Payday loans online are very popular in the UK. According to industry estimates, more than 1.2 million people took a payday loan in the UK and loan amounts varied anywhere from 100 pounds to about 700 hundred pounds. On an average, in the year 2009 ( when the recession first became apparent) more than 1.2 million people in the UK took a pay day loan and two-thirds of the borrowers earned less than £25,000 per year. The industry is not tightly regulated in the UK and lending companies are free to set their interest rates according to their requirements. However, UK law does require them to state the APR or the annual percentage rate of the loan on the contract and verbally to the consumer before they sign on for the payday loan. According to industry watchers in the UK, local consumers were more likely to approach payday loans companies rather than banks due to the simple application process, short term of the loan and quicker approval and cash disbursal methods. Due to this popularity, the UK payday loans market was estimated to be around £242million in 2009. This amount has easily tripled due to the surge in popularity of the lending process and the lending companies.
Rules and regulations for payday loans in the UK
In the UK, the payday loans process is not as tightly regulated as in the US. Furthermore, statistical data about the lending process, repayment rates and procedures and interest rates are also not as quickly available as in the US. However, the UK government has rules and regulations in order that do minimally supervise the payday loan companies that are registered in the UK. Basic rules and regulations for payday loans companies in the UK include the following:
- All payday loans companies have to registered with the Office of Fair Trading or the OFT to be authorized to offer consumer credit in the UK.
- There are no limits on the interest rates that the payday loans companies have to pay. As a result, a few companies charge about 1355% APR rates that also include compound interest on the loan while other companies charge about 2225% interest on the loans. A few charge about 25% advance repayment on the loan at the end of the month which comes to about 2000% APR rates. Most consumers in the UK are advised to compare rates and then take on loans to ensure that they are getting the lowest interest rates on the market. The Consumer Forum has also made it mandatory for the payday lenders to advertiser their APR rates on their advertisements and websites to educate the consumer.
- There are no rules about rolling over of loans. In the US, payday loans are only rolled over four times before it becomes mandatory for the borrower to pay back the loan.
This relatively simple market with a large turnover rate has attracted more and more US payday loans companies into the UK. For example, large companies like Dollar Financial have already been well established in the US are now expanding into the UK. At the time of writing, Dollar Financials had over 370 different branches spread out of the UK and business has been good. The financially-hit country has patronized payday lending extensively and most US companies are now planning on expanding into poor rural areas which will benefit the most from the payday loans services.
Do these payday loans really serve a niche purpose in the US and UK market? Will these rules and regulations actually help the consumer?
Yes, they do. Even though rules and regulations in both countries are dramatically different, the financial condition of local populace is the same. The recession hit everyone in the same way and most people in the UK and the US find it difficult to make ends meet. If the industry in the UK bounded by more than 34% then a concomitant increases was also noted in the US. Most economists agree that the payday loans process fills a niche demand for consumers who have poor credit and cannot get loans from anywhere else. In fact, a report showed that payday loans increased the chances of postponing a bankruptcy by as much as 30% by keeping a family or individual solvent till the next paycheck came in.