Money Shop coughs up £15.4m in compensation

The Financial Conduct Authority has hit the company behind payday lender The Money Shop where it hurts after ruling it must refund £15.4m to its customers, many of whom could never have afforded to pay back their loans.
Some 147,000 customers of Dollar Financial UK – which also owns Payday UK, Payday Express and Ladder Loans – will get their money back after the FCA said customers were hit by the company’s affordability checks, debt collection and system errors.
It is the third largest ever refund by a payday lender following separate investigations into Wonga and Cash Genie, which resulted in penalties of £220m and £20m respectively.
An apologetic Stuart Howard, who only recently became chief executive of Dollar Financial UK, said: “As the new chief executive, I accept the findings of the review and apologise to anyone who may have suffered difficulties as a result.
“It is proper that we put things right where they have gone wrong and I have gone further than the review in reforming the way our business operates to reflect the company aim of being the most responsible lender in its marketplace.”
Some 65,000 customers will get a full cash refund, 67,000 will have their loan repayments reduced and 15,000 others will get a combination of both.
In August this year, The Money Shop was forced to delve into its own coffers to the tune of £180,000 after the Information Commissioner’s Office found that it lost not one but two computer servers containing thousands of personal customer records, within a matter weeks.