Fifteen out of 50 payday lenders have thrown in the towel after being given a deadline by the trading watchdog to prove their business practices were up to scratch.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said that 14 of the lenders have told it that they are leaving the payday market and another firm which failed to meet the deadline has said it is no longer operating as a lender. The watchdog has been carrying out a probe into "deep-rooted" problems within the industry, such as lenders encouraging struggling borrowers to roll over loans they cannot afford so that the debt balloons. Last month it referred the sector for a full-blown investigation by the Competition Commission. A 12-week cut-off point set by the OFT for 50 lenders, which account for 90pc of the market, to show they are acting responsibly has now passed for all firms. The OFT said that of the 14 lenders who are leaving the payday industry, three have surrendered their licences completely. The other 11 continue to operate in other areas where they still need a consumer credit licence to trade, such as pawnbroking or debt collection, for example......Read more here