Name: Wonga.
Age: Nine years old.
Appearance: The living embodiment of karma.
Wonga? The payday lending firm with the happy pensioner puppet adverts? Not really. Wonga pulled those adverts last year, because it’s irresponsible for a high-cost credit company to make adverts that explicitly appeal to children.
Fine, I’ll start again. Wonga? The payday lending firm that sponsors Newcastle United? Technically that’s true, although Wonga is removing its logo from all kits sold in children’s sizes from next year, because it’s irresponsible to make kids walk around advertising high-cost credit companies on their clothing.
OK, third time lucky. Wonga? The payday lending firm that really doesn’t seem to be all that great ethically? That’s the one!
Finally. So why are we talking about Wonga? Because it just announced a pre-tax loss of £37.3m in 2014.
Ah, sweet poetic justice. Now, don’t be hasty. There are many non-karmic, entirely business-related reasons why a company like this could lose money.
Such as? Rises in operating costs, including the 12% rise that Wonga has faced since the Financial Conduct Authority imposed stricter affordability checks on anyone looking to borrow money.
And? Reasonable expenses, such as all the loans that Wonga has been forced to write off because it failed to properly assess whether or not its customers were able to repay them.
Anything else? Other sundries, including the £2.6m that Wonga had to pay in compensation after it was caught chasing debts with letters from pretend lawyers.
Is that everything? Well, there’s always the fact that, in terms of reputation, Wonga basically falls somewhere between Ryanair and Joseph Kony.
Those all sound pretty karmic to me. Fair point.
So is this the end of Wonga? Not at all. Its chairman Andy Haste is still hopeful for the future, claiming that Wonga will soon become a sustainable, responsible and transparent company.
Which means? I’m no expert, but I think it’s business speak for: “Sorry you caught us exploiting poor people. It won’t happen again.”
Do say: “Since Wonga has been so generous in the past, maybe we should all club together and offer them a loan … ”
Don’t say: “ … charged at a billion per cent APR, obviously.”
