Wonga set to ditch its Newcastle United sponsorship deal after crash in profits September 30, 2014 Wonga is considering scrapping its Newcastle United sponsorship deal and might never go back into TV advertising, after a major fall in profits last year. The online payday lender had a meteoric rise powered by catchy adverts, but profits crashed last year. It is paying customers £2.3m in compensation for sending debt collection letters from [...]
As Wonga profits slide, will regulatory pressure squeeze payday lenders out of the market? September 30, 2014 John Lamidey, senior partner at Arminius Associates and former chief executive of the Consumer Finance Association, says Yes. The Competition and Markets Authority says that 83 per cent of payday lending customers have taken out a loan online, and 29 per cent have done so on the high street (12 per cent use both). The [...]
Payday lender Wonga profits plummet by more than 50 per cent September 30, 2014 Wonga’s profits halved last year, as the controversial payday lender paid the price of mounting operating costs. Analysts had expected to see a sharp fall in profits of around 41 per cent, but Wonga’s 2013 results told and even sorrier story. Net profit plummeted 51 per cent in 2013 to £30.6m, compared with [...]
Wonga braced for sharp fall in its profits September 25, 2014 Online payday lender Wonga is set to report profits of £50m for 2013, down from £84.5m the previous year, it was reported yesterday. The high-profile firm has been beset with problems in the past year, with founder Errol Damelin stepping down as chairman and chief executive Niall Wass quitting after just six months in the [...]
Payday lender Wonga hires Tara Kneafsey to manage consumer loans September 9, 2014 Embattled payday lender Wonga yesterday announced the appointment of Latvian insurance expert Tara Kneafsey as its UK consumer loans managing director in a bid to clean up its image. Wonga has been bringing in new management, including new chairman Andy Haste, who joined in July following anger over its sending of threatening letters to customers [...]
MPs slam Wonga-style debt collection letters used by Lloyds July 16, 2014 Lloyds sent borrowers letters from its own law firm under a different name for decades, the bank admitted yesterday. MPs attacked the practice as “calculated to mislead” customers, less than a month after it emerged that payday lender Wonga had made up names of law firms to chase up debt repayments. The bank set up [...]
New Wonga chief scraps puppets in bid to clean up its brand July 14, 2014 Newly appointed Wonga chairman Andy Haste wasted no time yesterday in announcing a number of sweeping changes for the controversial payday lender, including the removal of puppets from the firm’s TV advertising. Former RSA Insurance chief executive Haste outlined six goals on Wonga’s website, stating that he needed to “re-present Wonga to the public” – [...]
Wonga appoints former boss of RSA as chair to lead turnaround July 14, 2014 Payday lender Wonga yesterday named former RSA Insurance group chief executive Andy Haste as chairman, who vowed to keep the company in line with tougher rules being imposed the loans industry. Haste replaces former chair and co-founder Errol Damelin, who announced his departure last month. Wonga and other short-term lenders have come under [...]
Wonga advertising puppets axed as new chairman plans overhaul July 14, 2014 New Wonga chairman Andy Haste wasted no time announcing his first task at the helm of the controversial payday lender: Get rid of those disturbing puppets. The first job that Haste, former chief executive at insurance group RSA, will take on as Wonga boss is to undertake a review of how the business operates and [...]
Church of England exorcises its £100,000 indirect stake in Wonga July 10, 2014 The Church of England has sold its indirect stake in payday lender Wonga, worth less than £100,000, ending its embarrassing link to the firm it has repeatedly criticised. In a statement yesterday the Church’s commissioners confirmed that the stake it had held via an investment in a pooled portfolio fund with Accel Partners had [...]