The SMS loan is a new lending system, which has enabled people usually barred from receiving loans, like teenagers and other low- and no-income groups, to borrow cash in no time flat. Fire off a simple text message, wait 15 minutes and presto, 300 Euros land in your account; the simplicity of obtaining SMS loans in Sweden is increasingly luring youths into debt. The number of un-repaid text message loans has soared: in 2007, Kronofogden was tasked with collecting debts from 20,000 such loans, 35.9 percent of which were granted to people aged 18 to 25. the loans, on average amounting to 3,000 kronor (320 Euros, 500 dollars), along with average fees of 500 kronor and interest payments of 50 kronor, must also be repaid at a breakneck speed of just 30 days. And if the loans are not repaid in time, borrowers are "trapped" in a vicious debt circle and are in many cases forced to take new loans to repay the sky-high interest rates and late charges that ensue. Carl Rosenbaum, a spokesman for Mobillaan Sverige, the first company to offer SMS loans in the Scandinavian country in 2006, insisted however that the criticism was "exaggerated." He pointed out that the loans, which also exist in the United States and several European countries, have been well-received by Swedes, renowned for high consumption habits and enthusiastic early-adapters for new technologies. The main danger of the new lending system is that it gives people the possibility to get money very, very quickly, which is stimulating impulsive actions without thinking. And there are certainly plenty of people eager for a bit of quick cash at the touch of a cell phone button.

While Mobillaan Sverige was alone on the market when the loans first appeared in Sweden in March 2006, there are some 30 similar companies competing for customers in the country today.

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