Wonga longa compo queue

Payday claimants rocket to 40,000

COMPENSATION claims against collapsed payday lender Wonga are four times higher than first thought. The Financial Ombudsman Service told MPs in January it had 10,500 open cases about the company when it went to the wall last August. But Wonga’s administrator, accountancy firm Grant Thornton, says the number is around 40,000, and warned “we expect this to increase”. The figure emerged in a letter from THE economy grew just 0.2 per cent in the three months to January, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday. A 0.5 per cent rise in January followed a 0.4 per cent drop in December. The Bank of England has predicted the lowest growth for a decade this year, slashing its forecast to 1.2 per cent – and it could be worse if there is a hard Brexit. Grant Thornton chief executive Dave Dunckley to Conservative MP Nicky Morgan, chairwoman of the Commons Treasury Committee. She said: “This problem is clearly much bigger than expected. It now appears that more than 40,000 people – and rising – may have an unresolved complaint about being mis-sold loans.” Grant Thornton said it would shortly launch an online tool to speed up the claims assessment process. This should make it easier to tell people whether they have a valid claim. However, it said even those who did would have to wait “until all recovery of assets has been made” to find out how much they will get. Claimants are likely to be near the back of the queue for any cash. Grant Thornton also warned that using a claims management firm would not speed up the process and could land people who use them with charges. FASHION chain French Connection has scraped back into the black but sales are still falling. The firm made a £100,000 profit in the 12 months to the end of January, from a £2.1million loss the previous year.

However, sales slid 6.8 per cent amid a “tough retail trading environment”.

Boss Stephen Marks said: “I believe that we have made and continue to make significant progress.” A WAVE of bank branch closures hit security giant G4S’s cash handling arm last year.

The business, which G4S is trying to sell, also suffered from a decline in cash use by the public.

The Cash Solutions arm saw turnover fall 9.3 per cent to just over £1billion, with profits down 17 per cent to £121million.

G4S as a whole, which employs more than 500,000 people in 90 countries, saw annual profits plunge 63 per cent to £143million because of higher costs related to the settlement of a lawsuit, and a pension charge.