Doorstep credit ‘costing too much’
The Competition Commission has said that consumers are paying too high a price for home credit.
An investigation into the doorstep lending market has found that although consumers were generally happy with home credit, there was a lack of competition in the market.
Acting Competition Commission chairman Peter Freeman said: “From the evidence so far it appears that home credit customers pay more than they should. We haven’t reached any conclusions in this inquiry and this document sets out only our preliminary thoughts, based on the evidence so far.”
Doorstep lending — where loan repayments are collected from the customer’s home — is dominated by just four companies. The biggest of the four — Provident Financial — claimed that the doorstep lending market was increasingly competitive and that there were low barriers to entry.
