Like our Nordic cousins, Irish people send more texts per day than they make phone calls according to the latest Comreg survey. Amarach researchers found the average mobile phone user in Ireland makes five calls a day but sends seven texts.

In fact, one can request all manner of services by text these days, from cinema schedules and answers to Trivial Pursuit questions to prostitutes and police assistance. However in Finland a trend has been growing over the past two years combining many of the national traits . . . well, bar the beards.

This is a surge in seeking instant loans by text message. Around 20 firms offer this service, which allows a financially embarrassed Finn to text his requirements to a loan shark who then instantly deposits cash in his current account. This allows the Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) depressive to keep on paying for pints on his debit card as the long winter or wet summer evenings continue.

Finland's consumer ombudsman's office is now seeking to regulate the budding text loan industry, which approves loans near instantly but levies exorbitant interest rates.

The agency has reportedly found that customers can get money transferred to their own bank accounts using another person's cell phone and national identification number.

According to the Financial Regulator and the Irish Credit Bureau, no such service exists in Ireland.

"This is interesting but frightening for obvious reasons, " said Dermott Jewell of the Consumer Association, who predicted such a service could never emerge in Ireland because of rules on lending set out in the new Consumer Code.

The issue hasn't been brought to the attention of the Financial Regulator so far, "and as long as [lenders] were compliant with our advertising requirements we wouldn't have an issue with it".

Interesting yet frightening indeed.