Survey of Payday Loan Services (PDLSS)

Detailed information for 2005

The primary objective of this survey is to provide reliable and statistically valid information at a national level on:
- Canadians' motivations for using payday loans;
- the alternatives to payday loans, if any, that these Canadians have; and
- Canadians' experience with, and knowledge of, the payday loan industry.

Data release - Since the expected response rate was not achieved, it was decided that no final output and analysis of results for the study could be released to the public.

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology

Description

The Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA), within Industry Canada, has contracted the Special Surveys Division of Statistics Canada to carry out the Survey of Payday Loan Services.

The primary objective of the Survey of Payday Loan Services is to provide reliable and statistically valid information at a national level on:
- Canadians' motivations for using payday loans;
- the alternatives to payday loans, if any, that these Canadians have; and
- Canadians' experience with, and knowledge of, the payday loan industry.

Subjects

• Business, consumer and property services
• Household assets, debts and wealth
• Income, pensions, spending and wealth
• Personal services

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The 138 responding households from the Survey of Financial Security, 2005 (see record number 2620) who answered 'yes' to question K8 as the target population for the PDLSS frame and sample.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

In order to prevent any data disclosure, confidentiality analysis is done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Disclosure Control System (G-Confid). G-Confid is used for primary suppression (direct disclosure) as well as for secondary suppression (residual disclosure). Direct disclosure occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of or dominated by few enterprises while residual disclosure occurs when confidential information can be derived indirectly by piecing together information from different sources or data series.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology does not apply to this survey.