SafetyNet Directors

SafetyNet Credit was a trading name of Indigo Michael Ltd, which entered administration in January 2023 after campaigners including Debt Hacker raised concerns about the firm’s practices and the harm caused to customers.

Follow the links below to read about its behaviour, the harm caused, why the FCA sanctioned the firm, and the questions we put to the FCA.

Compare the resources and expertise the directors had available to them with the limited knowledge that SafetyNet’s customers would have had. It’s a clear asymmetry of power; we suggest the 900,000 victims of SafetyNet didn’t stand a chance when the FCA relied on IML directors “to have systems and processes in place to make sure they meet all regulatory responsibilities and treat customers fairly” (Letter from the FCA’s Interim Director for Retail Lending, 4 November 2021).

Indigo Michael’s collapse came:

  • AFTER Debt Hacker, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Personal Banking and Fairer Financial Services, Transparency Task Force, Lord McNicol, Yvonne Fovargue MP, Greg Hands MP, other politicians and consumer campaigners raised concerns

  • AFTER the Financial Ombudsman Service had upheld 80% of complaints about the firm

  • AFTER the FCA had recognised the misuse of Continuous Payment Authorities (CPAs) by IML and the harm inflicted on victims

  • AFTER Debt Hacker had alerted its directors to their abusive business practices (which the FCA went on to ban)

Who were they?

The FCA’s Financial Services Register names the individuals previously involved in regulated activities at Indigo Michael Limited (IML).

A full list of the Directors and the length of their Directorships can be seen at the Indigo Michael Directors listing at Companies House.

Debt Hacker founder, Alan Campbell, says:

“It is inconceivable that IML Directors had ‘processes in place to make sure they meet all regulatory responsibilities and treat customers fairly’ nor that IML was ‘able to demonstrate that fair treatment of customers is at the heart of their business model.”

“To work around the rules in this way wasn't something that was casual, it was conceived, planned and implemented” says Chan.

Debt Hacker founder Alan Campbell says that financial and other wreckage “these expert and well-resourced directors inflicted on hundreds of thousands of individuals should be of grave concern to anyone interested in the fair treatment of consumers.”

“The staggering success of the SafetyNet trap meant IML paid out tens of millions in dividends to companies controlled by Iain McKenzie, the serial entrepreneur.

“Curiously it would appear that Iain McKenzie has two separate filings at Companies House listing his directorships. One with a correspondence address in Cyprus unrelated to his entry at Companies House as a Director of IML which has a Mayfair address”.