So much for cracking down on payday lenders.

Details of the long-awaited coalition crackdown on payday lenders who make huge profits by exploiting the poor were finally announced at the beginning of this month.

But the proposals from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) do not amount to what most people would consider a crackdown. They have even been welcomed by Wonga, the payday lender in chief.

In addition, the proposals are only for consultation and no new regulations will come into effect until next April.

FCA chief executive Martin Wheatley talked tough when announcing the proposals.

He said he was putting payday lenders on notice that tougher regulation was coming and that he expected them all to make changes so that consumers got a fair deal.

But his proposals were modest in the extreme and will do very little to rein in the lenders' unacceptable behaviour.

Wheatley says:

Lenders should do affordability checks before making loans to determine whether borrowers can afford to pay them back

A "risk warning" should be put on all loan adverts, saying: "Think! Is this loan right for you?"

Loans should not be "rolled over" more than twice if borrowers are having trouble making repayments

There should be restrictions on the number of times lenders can take cash from borrowers' bank accounts under the continuous payments authority, which borrowers are required to agree to when getting a loan.

But there wasn't a word in this "once in a generation change in regulation" about banning continuous payments authorities or about putting a cap on the horrendous interest rates these legal loan sharks charge.

Even a quick check will show that almost all such lenders charge representative annual percentage rates of at least 2,000 per cent - and many charge a lot more.

Wonga, for example, charges an APR of up to 5,853 per cent, something which enabled it to increase its profits last year by 36 per cent to over £1 million a week.

And they're not even the worst of them. One lender is reported to be charging an APR of 16,534 per cent and another 17,203 per cent.

Yet the coalition and the FCA refuse to put an end to this superhighway robbery on the grounds that capping what lenders charge might make it more difficult for people to get payday loans - and that might drive them into the arms of illegal backstreet loan sharks!

But the claim that capping won't work is a thin one. There are already caps in Australia (4 per cent a month), Japan (20 per cent a year), France (21.6 per cent a year) and at least 15 US states.

And why do they oppose capping payday lenders' rates when there is already a legal cap of 2 per cent a month, or 26.8 per cent a year, on the interest credit unions can charge?

How can it be justified that irresponsible money-grabbing payday lenders can charge whatever they like when responsible, community-based credit unions have a cap on what they can charge?

It really shows you what side the coalition and the so-called tough regulators in the Financial Conduct Authority are on.

Millions of hard-pressed families have had to take out loans from payday lenders to pay for necessities like food, clothing, energy and housing costs, but it is not just the Wongas of this world that are profiting from the poor in this way.

Millions more are forced to seek loans from "doorstep lenders" like Provident Financial who have 2.7 million customers and make more profit than Wonga. Doorstep lenders provide door-to-door loans where self-employed agents deliver the cash to the borrower and return every week to collect the repayments.

Their interest rates are generally not as high as those of payday lenders but, with APRs of around 400 per cent, they are still outrageous.

This means, for example, that a £200 loan, repayable over 32 weeks, will cost the borrower around £320 and make their financial situation even worse.

And a third group, "rent-to-buy businesses," have also found ways to profit from the poor by providing washing machines, fridges, furniture and other household goods under long-term repayment plans.

Rent-to-buy businesses have doubled their presence on the high street since the start of the recession and, according to a recent report, have increased their profits from £9m to £20m a year over the past three years.

Bright House is one of the most successful of these businesses, making its profit by charging a 64.7 per cent annual rate of interest.

This means that a £243 TV can end up costing £468 and an £853 fridge freezer can cost £1,638.

Not quite double the price, but it still helps drive needy people further into poverty.

This growing exploitation of the poor is increasing poverty and inequality. It needs to be exposed and challenged.

This can be done in a variety of ways, not least by campaigning for everybody to receive the living wage and real increases in pay, which would help deprive the payday parasites and others of customers to exploit.

It can also be done by taking on the companies involved, including by getting their advertisements banned from billboards and buses and their websites from computers in public libraries, as some councils are doing.

And it can be done by joining and working to increase the number of credit unions in Britain, as unions like Unite and Unison, church bodies and others are doing.

There are currently 400 credit unions with over a million customers in Britain and Northern Ireland and they provide a real alternative to the payday lenders and other financial parasites.

Many of them charge interest of only 1 per cent a month (12.7 per cent APR) on the reducing balance of a loan, meaning that a £1,000 loan would only cost around £1,067 a year.

Credit unions provide loans with no hidden charges. They facilitate savings as well as making loans and they exist to serve communities rather than to exploit them.

The payday parasites and their ilk serve nobody's interests but their own. Let's put them out of business.

Richard Lynch is a GMB representative.

Further information on credit unions is available from www.which.co.uk or from the Association of British Credit Unions (ABCUL) on (0161) 832-3694. To find a local credit union, contact ABCUL or visit www.findyourcreditunion.co.uk.