At last - consultation launched on Extortionate Credit....
6th March 2003

12 year wait over...now the hard work starts

12 years since the Office of Fair Trading first highlighted the failure of the Consumer Credit Act to protect low income borrowers from extortionate interest rates and charges, the Government has issued a consultation document on extortionate credit as part of its review of the Consumer Credit Act. The consultation document is available from the DTI's Consumer Finance pages. The deadline for responses is 6th June 2003. Initial coverage of the Government's proposals, which do not include the introduction of statutory interest rate ceilings, can be found on BBC's Working Lunch programme.

An initial response on behalf of Debt on our Doorstep has been made which criticises the continued reliance on court based systems of redress, and the failure to expressly define what would constitute an "unfair credit transaction". In addition, the Government continues to remain sceptical about the use of interest rate ceilings without having conducted any research into their operation elsewhere. Bizarrely, the consultation document states that research into these issues will be carried out at a later date. We'll post up some more responses in the coming weeks but in the meantime if you have a view on what should go into the Debt on our Doorstep response then let us know by posting a comment in our forum (from the Network pages) or by dropping us an e-mail.