The rise of the payday loan

December proved to be a popular time for payday loan applications in the UK with more than four times as many people applying in the first two weeks of December than in the whole month of November.

Europe’s biggest online microloan lender, Ferratum recorded such numbers and had to take on additional staff to cope with the extra applications on the lead up to Christmas. It has been suggested that as most people received their last pay well before Christmas the short term loans were used to help purchase last minute food and gifts.

The firm opened in July 2011 and has since seen rapid growth in the market. They have revealed that most customers were aged between 18-35 and more than 60% using the loans were female. Their loans are applied for online or via mobile only.

And the increase is set to continue with industry experts proposing that the number of applications will rise in the next 6 months by 75%, up to 3.5 million.