A major financial company with 40,000 customers in the North has admitted that it charges 183.2% interest. This is no backstreet loanshark operation, Provident Financial is a completely legal and government regulated firm.

When times get bad, with more unemployment and less cash in the family, parasites like these step up their efforts to trap us into loans with ridiculous interest rates. In the run up to Christmas Provident were emailing people across Northern Ireland offering £500 loans at the click of a button over the internet.