NEW Wonga boss Andy Haste is anxious that the company should be seen as “a sustainable and accepted business.”

That’s why he has agreed to write off loans worth £220 million to 330,000 customers currently in arrears by more than 30 days, although the true loss for the company is likely to be around £35m.

However, the real impact on Wonga is the unwanted publicity about how it has done business.

Even Haste has had to recognise that the need for change is “real and urgent” if there is to be any future at all for the company.

Overdue regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has finally put an end to some of the most disgraceful conduct, bordering on usury, of a supposedly respectable firm.

Payday loan firms are just one step removed from the loan sharks who operate in poor communities across Britain where encouragement to pay on time is beefed up by health warnings.

Wonga and the rest of the above-ground loan companies do not use such methods, but the burden of debt, topped up by default fees, ever-rising interest and constant warnings can have a drastic effect on their borrowers.

Ian Jordan’s suicide as a result of owing over £20,000 to nine payday loans companies is an extreme illustration of the stress that indebtedness can cause.

Fortunately such tragic results are rare, but this is no thanks to lenders for whom profits are the first and last consideration.

Wonga directors clearly didn’t give any thought to the possible risks attached to their decision to intimidate borrowers by sending them letters from bogus firms of solicitors threatening them with court proceedings.

Far from this being an aberration, the fact that 45,000 fake letters were sent out indicates that this was normal corporate practice.

According to the FCA, such conduct amounted to “unfair and misleading debt collection practices.” 

Other people may deploy more graphic language to describe the enormity of this big business bullying of poor, vulnerable and harassed people.

These dirty tricks, coupled with revelations about Wonga’s interest charges of over £5,000 per annum or £37.15 on a £100 loan for 30 days, have dragged the company’s name in the mud.

Even Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who was well acquainted with finance sharks during his years working in Nigeria for French oil company Elf Acquitaine, has felt the need to keep his distance.

The Church Commissioners — the investment arm of the Church of England — finally sold off its shares in Wonga in July after Welby spoke out against its dodgy practices.

Wonga has paid a price, with a 53 per cent dip in profits for last year, but it still made £39.7m and it must be remembered that this return was gouged out of people too poor to ask for or be given a bank loan.

New chief executive Haste speaks of Wonga being “smaller and less profitable in near term,” but most reasonable people might query what kind of society requires the existence of such financial vultures.

There is no point in asking the high street banks to soften their attitudes and begin lending small sums to people with little collateral.

So there should be greater support and publicity given to credit unions, which are run by community and trade union bodies to offer a service not a life sentence in debt.