Bank branch closures are pushing the poorest communities into the hands of payday lenders
Highstreet banks should be compelled to lend in all the communities from which they are taking deposits, says Gareth Thomas MP.
loan sharks
The UK needs to get a grip on legal loan sharks
The UK has fallen behind the rest of Europe in the battle to purge the scourge of payday lenders and violent loan sharks.
Nomination for most influential left-wing thinker 2011/12: Stella Creasy
Carl Packman MP nominates Stella Creasy as the most influential left-winger thinker 2011/12.
Tories refuse to support cap on high interest pay day loans
Less than half of Tory MPs want to impose a cap on pay day loan credit charges that are leaving consumers in crippling debt, a ComRes survey reveals today.
The next credit crisis will hit consumers, not banks
Packman looks at the findings that the boom before the bust was caused by growth in the consumer credit market, and asks what happens when it inevitably fails.
Legal loan sharks are licking their lips as the social fund is scrapped
Pete Jefferys of the Co-op party explains why the scrapping of the social fund – is playing into the hands of the legal loan sharks like Wonga and Oakam.
Non mainstream credit reform: What it is and why we need it
Backbenchers in the House of Commons are trying to guide the Consumer Credit Regulation and Advice Bill though Parliament to regulate the industry, reports Daniel Elton.
Time to muzzle the legal loan sharks
Lisa Nandy MP talks about the problems caused by the extortionate rate of legal loan sharks and discusses the End Legal Loan Sharks campaign.
MPs call for end to loan sharking
This week the ‘End Legal Loan Sharking’ campaign working with Lisa Nandy, newly elected Labour MP for Wigan, have tabled an early day motion to bring attention to the issue of legal loan sharking and put pressure on the government to act.
Call to end legal loan sharking – and interest rates of over 2500%
A coalition of citizens groups, MPs and campaigners have called on the government to end legal loan sharking.