For 36-year-old blogger and mother Jhie Velasco, having to buy toys for her children – Jem, 9 and Adriel, 3 – is a regular drain on her pocket. Toys, she says, also take up “a lot of space” in her apartment in Winnipeg, Canada. So when she heard about toy …

Payday loans have exploded over the past two decades, with lenders around the world offering cash-strapped consumers the ability to have cash in their bank accounts within hours. Designed to fill a gap in the market for those wishing to borrow small amounts of money over a shorter period of …