Mortgages
Wonga confirms mortgage market launch “some way off”
Wonga.com has denied plans to make a move into mortgage lending and money transfers anytime soon, after a story in The Telegraph suggested the payday loan lender was gearing up for the move.
The story suggested the payday lender had big plans for the UK payments and credit markets, including a launch into the “broken” mortgage market.
The Telegraph reports Errol Damelin, Wonga’s chief executive, saying: “You will absolutely see Wonga in areas where the traditional financial services players don’t deliver good value. We’ll do other stuff like payments and savings. We’ll probably do mortgages at some point. The mortgage market’s broken in the UK. It’s inefficiently priced,” he said.
In response, a spokeswoman for Wonga said: “As part of our strategy for growth we look at everything that touches modern financial services, both in the UK and in new markets. Any products that we do decide to launch will use our existing and proven technology. We won’t rule anything out, but any entry into the mortgage market would be a considerable way off.”
Wonga.com, which charges interest rates of 4,000% plus, was criticised in May this year for threatening to report defaulting customers to the police for fraud.
The OFT said Wonga had acted “without appropriate justification” in making the threats in calls, letters and emails to customers and could face fines of up to £50,000 if the poor conduct continued.
