Archbishop says Church speaks for the poor in battle with payday lenders
12:36am Tuesday 30th July 2013 in News
THE Church of England is speaking for the poor in its opposition to payday lenders, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
The Most Rev Justin Welby, formerly Bishop of Durham, said he had received an unusual number of positive responses since he told short-term, high-cost credit firm Wonga that the Church wants to compete it out of existence as part of its plans to expand credit unions.
It has since emerged that the Church of England indirectly invested ?75,000 in Wonga, out of investments totalling ?5.2bn, which Mr Welby acknowledged was "very embarrassing" following his remarks about the payday industry.
Speaking at an event organised by the New Wine church movement, in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, the Archbishop described the recent coverage as "astonishing" but insisted the feedback he had received had been overwhelmingly positive.
"The last few days have been astonishing with this affair over the payday lenders," he said.
"For a start, the positive comments have outweighed the negative - which in the letters that come to me is unusual.
"What people have commented on is a church speaking for the poor. And when the Church is real, people pay attention."
Mr Welby has suggested a comprehensive review of the Church's investment portfolio could take place following the revelation of its link with Wonga.
The Church of England leader proceeded to heap praise on Wonga and its management on Friday, appearing to distance himself from comments he had made about the company the day before, saying he wanted to compete it out of existence.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Funnily enough, I never took on Wonga in particular. The context was talking about the entire payday lender movement. Wonga is actually a very professionally managed company. Errol Damelin, the chief executive, is a very clever man, runs it extremely well."
He insisted, however, that he was not backtracking from his commitment to clamp down on irresponsible lenders.
"We need to provide a proper alternative to these very, very costly forms of finance. The worst people are not Wonga. There are plenty of others much worse," he said.
Mr Welby's campaign against payday lenders has been backed by Business Secretary Vince Cable, who said the Government was looking at better regulation of the industry as well as a bar on advertising high-interest loans to people who can ill afford to pay them back.
The Northern Echo also pledged to provide free advertising for credit unions in an effort to dissuade people from using other money lenders.
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