Amigo Loans
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Amigo Loans was a UK guarantor lender founded in 2005. It offered subprime personal loans secured by a friend or family member acting as guarantor, growing into one of Britain's largest non-bank lenders before a wave of mis-selling complaints destroyed it.
02 / Amigo Loans FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Amigo Loans collapsed under the weight of unaffordable lending. The regulator found its affordability checks inadequate between 2018 and 2020, with one in four guarantors forced to step in and repay; a flood of mis-selling complaints followed. Amigo could not afford the redress bill, so it proposed a court-approved scheme of arrangement - the first version rejected, a revised one approved in May 2022. Unable to raise restart capital by March 2023, the scheme fell back to an orderly wind-down.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Company founded
Amigo Loans is founded in the UK as a guarantor lender for subprime borrowers.
- Operations ended
Amigo suspends all new lending in November 2020 as mis-selling complaints and regulatory scrutiny mount.
- Wind-down announced
The High Court approves a revised scheme of arrangement in May 2022 to pay redress to mis-sold customers; nearly 210,000 claims are submitted.
- Closure announced
On March 23, 2023, after failing to raise the capital needed to restart lending, Amigo ceases new loans and begins an orderly wind-down; it later enters liquidation.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Inadequate affordability checks; one in four guarantors forced to repay
- 02
Flood of mis-selling complaints; redress bill unaffordable in full
- 03
Court-approved scheme; failed capital raise triggers fallback wind-down
- 04
New lending ceased March 2023; liquidation follows