Trends in the Australian small loan market

This paper was funded by a small grant from the Australian Centre for Financial Studies. The paper's brief was to respond to the following matters:  Provide an overview of the 'payday lending' market in Australia.  Investigate the impact of unsecured, short-term, small amount lending in Australia and the issues involved in regulating this sector.  Who are the users of payday lending? Is there evidence suggesting that the main users of small amount loans are financially excluded?  Explore the potential alternatives to payday loans.