Fresh debate has arisen over whether high cost credit lenders are preying on the vulnerable or providing a necessary service after the OFT said that it would not be imposing price controls on the payday loan market.

It was reported last week that the Office of Fair Trading had carried out a review into the payday loan market and had decided that the services that these lenders offered were necessary and invaluable to those that were in need of finance but could not go through a mainstream lender. The OFT announced that it would therefore not be imposing price controls on the payday loan market, where the APR is sometimes more than 2500 percent.
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Recently released figures have shown that increased restrictions on lending and lower demand for borrowing have led to a sharp fall in the value of personal loans issued in the first quarter of this year in the UK.

Over the past couple of years lenders in the UK have become far more restrictive when it comes to giving out finance to borrowers, with the effects of the global credit crisis and the recession leading to many lenders tightening up their lending criteria. At the same time consumer appetite for personal loans also seems to have dwindled, with many loathe to get themselves into further debt due to financial worries and possible job losses.
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It has been reported that the Advertising Standards Authority has banned a UK loans company from sending out a marketing message to people via their mobile phones.

Many people in the UK get fed up of receiving marketing materials through the post from loan companies encouraging them to take out finance, and phone calls from companies trying to sell them loans and other forms of finance. However, two people have recently complained after receiving SMS messages via their mobile phones from a loan company in the UK.
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Whilst payday loans have received a lot of bad press due to the high APR charges on these loans one industry official has suggested that they can be very useful for those that run into short term financial trouble.

Over recent years there has been a lot of bad press about pay day loans, and this has largely been based around the astonishing APRs that are charged on the loans. A pay day loan is a short term loan that is designed to tide consumers over until payday comes around, and the amounts available are generally relatively small amounts based on income and other factors.
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According to a recent report around sixty percent of businesses in the UK were turned down for loans and credit by banks last year despite the fact that the government has been trying to boost lending to businesses.

It has been revealed in a recent report that almost sixty percent of businesses in the UK were turned down for loans and credit last year from banks, even though the government had been putting measures into place to encourage lenders to give credit and loans to businesses that needed them. The data comes from a survey that was carried out recently by the Institute of Directors.
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According to figures that have been recently released banks are now making record profits on personal loans because of the extortionate rates of interest being charged compared to the rock bottom base interest rate.

Banks have been receiving bad press for the past couple of years as a result of many different factors, and it appears that the banking industry could be in the line of fire once again following revelations about the level of profit that banks are making on personal loans. It has been revealed in a recent report that banks are charging the highest interest rates on personal loans in the last ten years, leaving customers out of pocket and making record profits themselves.
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With the loans market still severely restricted in the UK many poorer households have been turning to loan sharks to get some cash for Christmas, and this has resulted in many starting 2010 in severe debt.

As most people are aware the loans and finance markets have been very restricted over the past couple of years, and borrowing money has become very difficult for many people, particularly people from low income households. Desperation has led to many of these people looking for alternatives to get the cash they need, and officials have said that this has resulted in many poorer people kicking off 2010 in severe debt.
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A recent report has claimed that many lenders are increasing the interest rates on their mortgage loans despite the fact that the base interest rate has been kept on hold for the tenth month.

It was announced this week by the Bank of England that the base interest rate was being kept on hold at 0.5 percent. This was the tenth month in a row where the base rate had been kept at this level, which is the lowest it has ever been in the history of the Bank of England, which spans over three centuries.
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Some industry officials have suggested that with the large amount of debt that some consumers get themselves into each Christmas they could find that a debt consolidation loan could prove helpful.

Over the course of this Christmas there are many consumers that will have undoubtedly got themselves into a fair amount of unsecured debt with loans and credit card debts. However, worryingly there is evidence to show that some of these consumers may not even have finished paying off the debt that they accrued last Christmas as yet, and are simply adding to the debt resulting in a snowballing effect.
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