Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-01-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to regulate advertising by payday loan companies; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The Government has fundamentally reformed the regulation of the consumer credit market, including payday lending, transferring regulatory responsibility from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to the FCA on 1 April 2014. The Government is concerned about consumer detriment in the payday market and believes the FCA’s, more robust regulatory system is helping to improve protections for consumers. It is important that consumers are protected from unfair costs. The Government therefore legislated to require the FCA to introduce a cap on the cost of payday loans – which came into force on the 2 January 2015.