Mr. Paul Joyce:

Collection charges may well be phased out over time. Nowadays, most houses have a laptop or one member of the family can facilitate paying electronically. I do not know whether that is the future of licensed moneylending. It is also quite true that many licensed moneylenders and customers have that kind of relationship where they call to the door. I do not know if that is on the way out but clearly, paying electronically should attract a much lower rate of interest.

At the moment, each licence holder is authorised to charge up to a maximum rate of interest depending on the length of the loan and collection charges and so on. It brings me back to the question I raised as to what extent there is competition in the licensed moneylending industry. If, therefore, a maximum rate of three times the market rate was put in place, would the maximum become the minimum or would licensed moneylenders compete with each other to offer lower costs of credit?