Nearly 75% of personal loans charge early redemption penalties yet many providers are guilty of burying this fact in the small print of the terms and conditions. IF, which does not penalise you for repaying a loan early, is calling for those that do to make their charges more transparent.

If you have a squeaky clean credit record and need to borrow a relatively small amount of money, a 0% purchase credit card may be your cheapest and best borrowing option. This sort of card offers you 0% interest on all new spending for a set period of time. At the moment, the market leader is the Tesco Clubcard credit card, which offers 0% on purchases for a full 12 months. After that, the typical APR reverts to 16.9%.

Wonga stresses that credit and identity checks are strict but if the application can be checked and decided upon so quickly, as promised, can that really be the case? The company also says that if borrowers use the facility for short term emergencies, say £150 borrowed for a week, then repayments are very competitive at just £10.50 or 7%.