Church of England seeks to put an end to payday lenders

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http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/25/uk-britain-church-lenders-idUKBRE96O0CG20130725

(Reuters) - The Church of England will seek to drive Britain's controversial payday lenders out of business by launching its own credit unions, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said in an interview published late on Wednesday.

Welby, who has led the church since March, is among leading critics of firms like short-term lender Wonga and Provident Financial, which typically provide hard-up families with loans of up to 1000 pounds to be repaid when they receive weekly or monthly wages.

The archbishop said he had met with the chief executive of short-term lender Wonga, Errol Damelin, and told him "we're not in the business of trying to legislate you out of existence, we're trying to compete you out of existence", according to an interview with Total Politics magazine's August issue.

The market for the loans has grown rapidly in Britain and other countries like the U.S. as benefit cuts squeeze poor households' budgets and traditional bank credit lines wither in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

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1. kick

[Wounded Bear]

2. K & R.....nt

[cali]

3. payday lenders are shocking. they are strictly illegal in my state.

[FSogol]

4. Churches here should do the same.

Payday lending and title loans are scams that feed on the poor.

[William769]

5. Good.

[GreenStormCloud]

6. IF the Church of England can do it - Good for them.

But they are going to run into the same problems that the Loan companies have. The Loans are going to be to people who are at a very high risk of not being able to pay back the loan. They will lose a sizeable percentage to non-payment. Then they will have to make up the losses by having higher interest rates.

The people who us such loan companies don't have access to credit cards that they can use for short-term cash advances.

Often such people don't know how to manage money. They don't know how to make a monthly budget, how to plan their finances. The church could try also offering free classes on basic household budgeting.

[LadyHawkAZ]

7. Why not just give the money to the poor?

[DirkGently]

8. Good. n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Archbishop of Canterbury 'furious over' Church investment in Wonga

The Archbishop of Canterbury is understood to be "furious" after the Church of England confirmed it invests indirectly in online lender Wonga.
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The amount of Church money indirectly invested in Wonga was less than £100,000 out of investments totalling £5.2bn.
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The Financial Times had reported that the Church's pension fund, which claims to explicitly ban firms involved in payday lending, had invested in US venture capitalists Accel Partners - a company that led Wonga fundraising in 2009.

According to BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott, the Church's investment is said to be removed from its immediate control by "several layers".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23459932

Oops.