Nigel Dodds – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Dodds on 2014-07-15.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to ensure that pay day loan companies are restricted from deliberately intimidating their customers.

Andrea Leadsom

The Government has fundamentally reformed the regulation of the payday lending market. Regulatory responsibility for consumer credit transferred from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on 1 April. The FCA has transposed key parts of the OFT’s Debt Collection Guidance into binding rules, which sets out the types of business practices considered unfair and incompatible with fitness to operate.

The FCA is undertaking a thematic review into payday lenders’ debt collection practices to ensure that firms treat customers who are struggling with repayments fairly. The FCA expects to publish the final report early in 2015 which will set out what practices it has found across the market and how it expects all firms in the market to make sure they are observing the right standards of behaviour.