The Strabane SDLP District
Executive has strongly welcomed the news that the UK’s 50 biggest pay-day lenders are to be given 12 weeks to clean up their industry or face being shut
down.
SDLP Spokesperson Patrick
Leonard said; The SDLP strongly welcome this move which is a big victory for
all of those who have been campaigning for intervention in the high-cost credit market,
which is often uncompetitive and exploitative, and has seen pay-day loan
companies charging annual interest rates of up to 4,000 per cent per year.
“This kind of lending – where greedy and
unscrupulous loan companies prey on the financially excluded by offering easy
credit at extortionate rates – has tipped so many people across the Strabane
District and throughout the North into inescapable cycles of debt and poverty.
“Whilst home-credit agencies, moneylenders and loan
sharks are not a new phenomenon, in the current economic downturn they have
become more prevalent, more pernicious and more profitable.
“SDLP MP’S have sponsored motions at Westminster,
spoken during Commons debates and have lent full support to campaigns urging
the government to introduce a legal cap on the amount of interest that can be
charged by pay-day loan companies.
“People in my district are suffering enough at this
difficult time, It is only right that steps are taken to protect some of the
poorest borrowers in society, rather than allow them to be exploited, Mr
Leonard Said.
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