2009 has been seen Wonga on a roll, winning award after award!

A few months back we were nominated in the Best Online Business category of the prestigious Startups Awards, which celebrate the UK’s most outstanding young businesses and the people running them.

Startups Awards 2009 is organised by Startups.co.uk – the UK’s largest website for people starting and running their own businesses.

The winner of each category was chosen by judges including Doug Richard, founder of School for Startups and Margaret Manning, CEO of Reading Room.

They said: “the successful businesses and the people behind them proved their brilliance after fighting off competition from hundreds of entries.”

Friday the 13th was a lucky date for us, as we walked out with the coveted prize! A massive thank you to our customers for choosing Wonga and helping us ge where we are today.

Talking to our customers we are used to great feedback and to hearing about their ‘Wonga moments’ – those particular times when their lives are made so much easier by taking a flexible loan to pay for an unexpected  expense or a great deal that might be otherwise gone by the time of their next pay cheque.
We heard one such story this week and it seems worth sharing it; a customer, let’s call her Miss K, found herself in a bit of a pickle when, after collecting money off her flatmates to pay their council tax, realised that the credit card she had with her didn’t have any funds.  She needed to deposit the money to pay the council tax the same day in order to avoid extra charges from the tax man.

On her lunch break that day, Miss K made a dash for her local bank branch, only find out that they were undergoing refurbishment and the counter services were suspended.  Just when she was about to fall in despair because she didn’t have her online banking security pad to transfer funds from one account to the other, she thought ‘Wonga!  She applied for a short term loan and had the money she needed in her account within 15 minutes!  The next day she managed to deposit the cash in her account and repay her loan, avoiding extra charges and paying interest on lengthy loans that she didn’t need

News outlets have been reporting this week on new regulation to enforce fair treatment of customers and clarity on charges by banks. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has taken over the Banking Code Standards Board (BCSB) as the regulatory body for Customer Services Standard and, unlike the BCSB, it will have the power to impose fines if there are breaches in their conduct.

What the new rules say:

- A bank cannot refuse a refund on a fraudulent transaction just because the genuine card and PIN was used
- Savings account providers must give customers two months’ notice before reducing interest rates
- Unexpected debits made from your credit or debit card, such as from a car-hire firm, must be refunded by your bank
- From January 2012, all electronic payments must be credited to an account by the following business day. Until then, this can take up to three days

The rules are still not sufficiently clear for consumers to understand what their rights are, however, and without simple guidelines from where to draw information, they leave too much room for interpretation.
More importantly, these FSA rules cover savings and instant access accounts but don’t apply to unsecured loans, bank overdrafts or credit cards – the areas where the most unspecified and unclear charges often occur. 

Wonga is committed to transparency, and with our easy loan calculator you are always aware from the beginning of exactly how much you will pay back.

No wonder that Wonga customers love our service and send us amazing feedback – they can be in charge of their finances, avoid the pesky hidden charges and take a flexible loan that matches their requirements, not those of bank managers.