The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has told Swift, trading as Swift Advances plc and Swift Securities Limited, that it must improve its lending and collections practices or risk losing its credit licences.

The credit regulator has establish that Swift was lending second charges to customers with poor credit histories or limited access to credit without checking whether they could afford the loan or verifying their income.

Swift also failed to take account of their other financial commitments and personal circumstances and “fully”” check the information provided in the application.