Churches snub call by Welby to replace Wonga with CofE loans

MOrE than 90 per cent of Anglican churches have shunned the Archbishop of Canterbury’s plan to compete with payday lenders.

Just 8.8 per cent have any involvement in social financial projects or offer debt advice, and only 2 per cent run their own advice or lending operations.

The news comes five years after the Most reverend Justin Welby promised to go to war with market leader Wonga and other payday lenders.

in 2013, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned the head of Wonga: ‘We’re trying to compete you out of existence.’ He said the CofE would use its 16,000 churches to give consumer-friendly credit unions a foothold in every high street.

But yesterday the Church published its ‘statistics for mission’, which showed that last year only 1,139 churches were involved in ‘money matters and debt advice’ projects.

The figures from 13,000 of its churches showed that 2,347 run night shelters for the homeless, nearly 3,000 operate a ‘community cafe’, 4,191 have a parent and toddler group, and nearly 8,000 work with food bank charities. Archbishop Welby said: ‘From food banks to debt counselling and lunch clubs to language classes, these figures spell out for the first time the sheer scale and range of our churches’ commitment to their communities. We are doing more to love and help people in need than at any time since 1945.’

He began his battle in July 2013, saying: ‘We’re putting our money where our mouth is – starting a Church of England staff credit union.’ But its credit union, Churches Mutual, only lends to clergy and church staff.

The Archbishop’s campaign against Wonga, which collapsed this summer, was undermined when it turned out the CofE was actually a shareholder of the lender.

Then, in a speech this autumn, the Archbishop said Amazon and other online giants failed to pay workers a living wage and were leeching off the taxpayer by paying minimal taxes. However, the Mail revealed that the CofE had invested millions of pounds in Amazon.