Wonga a powerful force for good in the financial world?

WALSALL, U.K. - Aug. 8, 2013 - PRLog -- The CEO went on to explain that the company aims to challenge the ‘tired and incompetent banking industry’ and addressed claims that customers only use Wonga because they are ‘without options’ by dismissing them completely.

Mr Damelin has been on the defensive ever since the Archbishop of Canterbury’s remarks that he wants to put the lender, co-founded by Mr Damelin in 2006, out of business by creating a network of credit unions.
The Archbishop’s words created a media storm, which coincided with Newcastle United footballer Pappis Cisse refusing the wear the Wonga branded shirt for the forthcoming season on religious grounds, as religious commentators began to raise questions against the level of interest which the lender was charging and their ethics as a business. 

Talking publicly for the first time since some of the comments by various members of the community, including Most Rev Justin Welby, Damelin said he refused to ‘leave this debate only to a loud majority with scant financial realities’.

Damelin went on to say how he thought the Archbishop’s proposals on credit unions raised ‘equally complex challenges’ were they to become ‘mainstream’.

‘It must solve the kind of occasional cash flow needs we cater for, which are often time sensitive and very short-term’.

‘While we would be happy to apply our technology and expertise to help resolve these challenge, no single company can have all the answers’.

Damelin stringently defended Wonga’s business plan and model – its core is offering loans for up to 30 days at an average annualised percentage rate of 5853pc.

‘The view that alternative finance options are for those without options is far from the truth and just doesn’t cut it. We have more than a million customers ourselves and we can’t leave this debate only to a loud majority with scant experience of financial realities’.

Damelin went on to claim that an average Wonga customer pays only £1.50 a day in interest for short term loans of up to a month.

Nevertheless Errol Damelin welcomed the threat of competition by stating: ‘We are a credit based society and the widespread demand to borrow cash is not going away’.

Griffin and King
www.griffinandking.co.uk