Loans firm Amigo let off £73m fine

Struggling high-cost lender Amigo has been let off a £73m fine because it couldn't afford to pay it.

The Financial Conduct Authority said the firm failed to carry out proper affordability checks on borrowers, leaving many with little chance of being able to repay their loans.

The mis-selling led to Amigo facing a huge compensation bill, which almost caused the company to go bust.

The FCA said a fine would have caused Amigo "serious financial hardship".

So it publicly censured the firm instead.

Amigo said it fully accepted "the lessons that needed to be learnt".

The FCA said a fine would have hit Amigo's ability to pay out millions of pounds in compensation to customers under a High Court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement, even though "the serious failings in this case warrant a substantial financial penalty".

"The size of the fine demonstrates the huge scale of the Amigo mis-selling," said debt expert Sara Williams, who writes the Debt Camel blog.

She said the firm gave large, expensive loans to people in financial difficulty with few checks. "It raises questions about how the FCA has handled this - why did FCA supervision fail the Amigo customers so badly":[]}