Mike O'Connor, chief executive of Leeds-based debt charity Stepchange.

Mike O’Connor, the chief executive of Leeds-based StepChange, said that inadequate affordability checking was still a problem in parts of the payday loans market.

Complaints about payday lending across the UK increased by a fifth during 2016 to around 5,100.

In the last six months of 2016, the financial ombudsman received around 380 payday lending complaints from Yorkshire, which is up by more than a third (36 per cent) when compared with the first half of last year.

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Sixty per cent of the total payday lending complaints from Yorkshire and the Humber came from West Yorkshire. Payday lending complaints came from a wide variety of people, ranging from nurses and teachers to engineers and business analysts.

“Most of the complaints we receive involving payday loans are about affordability – and a consumer coming to us with 10-20 loans is a typical example of a two-year ‘relationship’ with a payday lender,’’ a spokesman for the Financial Ombudsman said.

Caroline Wayman, the chief ombudsman, said the Financial Conduct Authority has imposed new rules on payday lending and “hopefully we will see improvement as a result of that”.

In April 2014, the FCA put the spotlight on higher risk products, such as payday loans. Around 800,000 fewer people took out a payday loan over the following 18 months.

There has been a 20 per cent drop in the number of approvals for payday loans since April 2014.

Ms Wayman added: “It’s really important to try and help people feel comfortable talking about it.”

The StepChange debt charity works with a range of clients who have complaints about payday lenders.

A StepChange spokesman said: “A payday lender, to whom a StepChange client owed money, contacted the person’s line manager at work and disclosed information about the debt in an effort to place pressure on them to repay.