Payday loan ad banned for '£1,000 night out' offer The greatest nunber of complaints were made because the messages failed to disclose it was a marketing text. All three areas of complaint were upheld. First Financial said it was only responsible for setting up payday loan websites which were then passed on to advertisers and that on receipt of this complaint it had been assured that all of those receiving the message had "opted in," although Akklaim Telecoms had failed to supply the information. The ASA ruled that the messages would be likely to be understood as personal messages and added: "This impression was further created because the senders' numbers were standard UK mobile numbers." It also said: "We considered that, within the context of the message as a whole, recipients would understand from the statement "I'm still out in town" that the sender had used the money from the payday loan to fund their day out and that this was therefore an acceptable way in which to spend the money. Because the text messages implied that it was suitable to use a payday loan for the purpose of 'socialising', we concluded that the ads were irresponsible. The ASA banned an advert for Cash Lady, featuring reality TV celebrity Kerry Katona, earlier this year. The advert was adjusted and approved to be used again. Last month, the ASA issued a statement on the issue: "There are limitations to what action we can take when a product is legally allowed to be on the market, and legally allowed to be advertised. We occasionally receive calls to ban entire sectors from advertising altogether. This sort of action requires legislation and a decision from Government; our role is to make sure that legally permitted ads are prepared in a responsible way and don't contain anything harmful or likely to mislead. The new Financial Conduct Authority will be taking on responsibility for regulating the payday loans sector from the Office of Fair Trading and will be reviewing the statutory rules covering payday loan ads in the coming months. The best news and advice: Telegraph money newsletter