Compared to how quick loans are examined in the Latvian media room – and for the lenders it is not a rose garden – the British media simply hates quick loans or payday loans.

Such newspapers as The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Daily Mail regularly covers the latest and worst in quick loan market, which, among other things, in the UK as well as in Latvia is not regulated by the credit ceiling and is therefore considered to be particularly dangerous.

And not only the media, but also the authorities speak. The Office of Fair Trading has begun an investigation of cases when lenders use the possibility to remove the money from accounts, even when borrowers have not given permission.

Wonga – the UK’s most popular lender

Lender Wonga in the UK appears to be about the same as SMScredit and Vivus in Latvia. Wonga is eerily popular lender whose income tripled last year, reaching 45.8 million pounds from 2.5 million in loans. Among other things, the company entered into 24 million pounds worth of advertising contract with the Premier League team “Newcastle United” (comparing with hockey team “SMScredit“). At this the similarity ends, because the interest offered by Wonga is about 10-15 times greater than that offered by Latvian lenders (currently Wonga offers loans at an annual percentage rate of 4214%).

Both in the above mentioned newspapers and, most certainly, in football fans’ life lively controversy about this business is taking place, and the public is certainly not in Wonga’s side.

Recently British media aroused a case in which a member of Parliament actively involved in the quick loan market regulation received offensive remarks addressed to her Twitter account. These remarks, as it turns out, were sent by a Wonga employee and Wonga was forced to apologize on behalf of the employee. Adequate motivation, apart from the stupidity of such messaging is indeed difficult to see.

In summary, we can say that the Latvian market is ambitious – at least from the outside. Although the Latvian lenders sometimes tend to surprise the audience with grand ads, the market itself is orderly, people more educated, while loans – much, much cheaper.