Weekly payday roundup: 7 days ended 30th Aug 2012:
Usually there’s no dearth of horrible news when it comes to payday loan companies doing their best to drive you mad, but the past week or so has featured high street lenders.
The lack of affordable (or available) cash loans from traditional sources such as banks and building societies has been a serious problem for far too long. Ever since the global financial crisis and resultant economic meltdown – an issue that high street banking giants played a bloody great role in, lest we forget – it’s been impossible to qualify for a personal loan; the result is that most people who need lending have been driven right into the waiting arms of those legalised loan sharks that go by the name of QuickQuid and Wonga.
What’s worse is that these traditional lenders are so transparently unapologetic it’s not even funny. Even when they’ve announced that they all plan to begin dropping the interest rates on their large-scale loans, they don’t say anything about relaxing the currently Draconian qualifying criteria – instead they expect a pat on the back for lowering their interest rates, like it matters if they’re not lending in the first place!
Of course, these traditional lenders aren’t dropping their rates out of the goodness of their hearts; they’re preparing to do so in anticipation of a base rate cut that’s supposed to go into effect by the end of December. Of course, there’s another reason they’re looking forward to the base rate cut – they can pare back the rates of return on their savings products and hoard even more of their ‘hard-earned’ cash.
UK banks and building societies are so fearful of another economic collapse that they’re hoarding capital like a pack of great big greedy dragons, aren’t they? Is it any wonder that so many people that have fallen on hard times – due to the recession that these high street lenders caused, let’s not forget – have had to rely on high interest rate short term loans to meet ends and ending up in horrible, near-crippling debt when they’ve inevitably been unable to repay these 4,000 per cent APR interest rate loans?
It’s enough to make you want to go down to your local and have a few pints. Of course, most people can’t afford that right now, so you’d better stop off at your local payday advance shop so you can afford it – you know you won’t get any help from your bank branch.