Exploring payday loan consumers’ lived experience of managing money

Brown, Jane (2018) Exploring payday loan consumers’ lived experience of managing money. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

This thesis explores UK payday loan consumers’ lived experience of managing money, to better understand financial decisions made by indebted individuals. Payday loans offer a high cost, short-term credit solution to individuals without a savings safety net. Recent legislation has improved lender behaviour, and reduced the size of market. However, the number of complaints logged by payday loan users remains high. Scant research regarding payday loan users is available; that which exists tends to be commissioned by lenders or consumer protection groups, or US-based.

The theoretical domain of this research is consumer decision-making (CD-M). CD-M is theorised within the field of consumer behaviour. However, this field tends towards an economic and rational underpinning, which often fails to take context and emotive state into account. This research aims to give voice to real life payday loan users, and consider the wider context of emotions in CD-M.

Existential-phenomenological interviews and participant-generated Post-it® models were used to explore the lived experience of payday loan consumers. The data was analysed using a customised, innovative method that draws upon an existential-phenomenological analysis, thematic analysis, and voice-centred relational method.

An original model of movement around credit sources was created, identifying several orbits on which groups of credit products exist. Reasons for movement between the orbits are also explored, with a chapter that explores borrowing at Christmas.

The findings address several issues within the literature, in particular where traditional CD-M theory does not adequately explain the decisions made by payday loan consumers. This is important for lenders and policymakers to better understand the financial decisions of consumers, with implications for future payday loan policy, business strategy and communications.

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