This should prove, or nothing can, that I will indeed be highlighting, at least once a week, some good news, no matter what the source. For this week, not only am I pointing out something good, but the good thing I am highlighting is actually being done by, of all things, a religious organization. Well, I guess the Anglican Church counts as a religious organization. It’s sort of the Catholic Church, without the guilt. Anyway, here’s the good news, and it really is a good thing:
Payday lenders like Wonga, Speedy Cash and Quick Quid are increasingly lending small sums of money for a few days or weeks at interest rates that, when extrapolated onto a full year, can exceed 5,000 percent. Welby calls the practice “sinful” and “immoral.”
But unlike German reformer Martin Luther, who wanted to see all usurers sent to the gallows, Welby preaches solutions from within the system. In a meeting in late July with the head of one of the money-lending companies, Errol Damelin of Wonga, Welby reportedly said: “We’re trying to compete you out of existence.”
It’s the kind of language that is understood in the financial world of London. Some 2,000 years after Jesus drove moneychangers and lenders out of the temple, Bishop Welby is inviting them back in. The Church of England, says Welby, has “16,000 branches in 9,000 communities,” which he wants to open up to credit unions so that they can issue short-term loans to the needy at far more moderate interest rates.
(via SPIEGEL ONLINE)
Welby is the Archbishop of Canterbury, and as the article points out, his strategy might not work, since if the loans are made through credit unions they might not be made as quickly as the loan sharks are able to make them. But nonetheless, it’s actually a concrete way of helping people. This reminds me of an idea that got re-floated, so to speak, a while back that’s gone nowhere, even though it has worked well in North Dakota for about a century: state owned banks. The idea here is not to compete private banks out of existence, but to provide a check on their excesses. If people have a place to park their money where they get a reasonable return and reasonable fees they will use that service, and the banks will either have to do the same, or retreat from providing insured banking services and stick to organized crime.
So, anyway, good for the Church of England. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve heard about a Christian Church actually doing something of which Christ might actually have approved. It may not work, but at least they’re trying.
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