NORMALLY we would not welcome news that a company’s profits have plummeted, but payday lender Wonga is not a normal company.

The firm whose name adorns Newcastle United shirts saw profits slump by 53 per cent - but it still made a hefty £39m last year.

Wonga has come under widespread attack for charging eye watering interest rates of up to 5,853 per cent a year.

Take out one of its £100 loans over 30 days and you will be charged £37.15 interest.

Wonga is ditching its advertising campaign featuring string puppets in a bid to avoid appealing to young people.

But it will take more than a makeover to clean up the battered reputation of one of Britain’s most controversial industries.

Complaints against payday lenders have more than doubled in the past two years, with many borrowers citing aggressive debt collection practices, according to a report by the Financial Ombudsman.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, MPs, debt campaigners and The Northern Echo have been among critics of operators that have been branded 'legal loan sharks'.

The pressure has prompted a crackdown.

In June, the financial watchdog ordered Wonga to pay £2.6m in compensation to 45,000 customers, after sending out fake letters to customers in arrears from non-existent law firms.

The lender was also told to compensate 200,000 customers who were overcharged, as the result of a technical issue.

Furthermore, a quarter of short-term lenders are tipped to go bust as a result of the watchdog’s new rules to weed out firms that pile charges on borrowers who have little chance of repaying.

Wonga’s dwindling profit margin is a sign, we hope, that firms are finding it harder to prey the vulnerable.

These are steps in the right direction.

But more work needs to be done to protect people from taking out loans at exorbitant rates, and to offer alternative, more affordable forms of finance.