Loan businesses or the loan brokerage services worked as solutions helping those with low credit rate by providing them with money. However, it has been pointed out consistently by the media, that during the process of such provision, the powerless co...
Loan businesses or the loan brokerage services worked as solutions helping those with low credit rate by providing them with money. However, it has been pointed out consistently by the media, that during the process of such provision, the powerless commoners became the victims while the money providers overreached themselves gaining enormous profit. In 2013, the Tongyang Cement & Energy Corp. experienced management crisis, and one of the critical reasons behind this was the ‘loaners being the private source of funds for the major shareholders’ (The major companies tried to circumvent the law, the「The Act on the Structural Improvement of the Financial Industry」, which was made to break-off the corrupt relationship between the financial capital and the industrial capital. Namely, they used the loan companies as conduits to invest money and secure granting of credit for their affiliates). Currently, 3 credit card companies failed to prevent personal information leakage and the loan brokers paid money to obtain this information illegally seeking to take advantage, which was later brought to light. As the loaners or the loan brokers tried to take advantage of the weak point of the「Act on Registration of Credit Business and Protection of Finance Users」, the financial authorities presented a press release and announced shake-up regarding the Loan Company Act. In February 26th2014, there was a pre-announcement of legislation regarding the「The Act on Registration of Credit Business and Protection of Finance Users」making an amendment to this bill (‘the revision’).
The revision classifies the loan business into 3 categories: ‘loan specialist’, ‘loan broker’ and ‘loan credit purchase & collection’. Also, the revision includes a guideline for the loan businesses with certain scale: that they should be registered to the Financial Services Commission. Being registered as such allows the Central Administration Organization to manage and oversee the loan businesses instead of putting the non-professionals of this field, the mayors or governors in charge. Moreover, the conditions related to the capital and warrant money depending on the type or scale of the loan business were newly added to strengthen the requirements for registering a loan business.
The safety and soundness regulation was introduced to target certain loan business owners, while the total asset of the loan specialists, registered to the Financial Services Commission, was limited by the president decree so that it cannot exceed 10 times of its equity capital, basically to prevent the business from over-expanding. Furthermore, the companies restricted to mutual investment based on the 「Monopoly Regulations and Fair Trade Law」were only allowed to do business with the major shareholders if the volume of the business itself did not exceed the amount of its equity capital. As for the loan businesses with credit finance corporations as their largest shareholder, granting of credit for their major shareholders was forbidden. Other restrictions such as organizational/professional sanctions or imposing a business suspension to those who obtained information taking advantage of illegal data leakage for the purpose of making profit, or implementing an overdue penalty system which could be a substitute for business suspension etc. also took place signaling a huge change.
Such revision is likely to cause a positive effect tightening the former regulations and being able to prevent reoccurrence of crisis, like the one caused by the Tongyang Cement & Energy Corp. Nonetheless, additional improvements are required to supplement some of the inadequate parts of the law.
Regarding the entry regulations related to the requisites for the individual capital, there should be a thorough discussion to settle the minimum requirements for the ‘amount of net assets’. Also, the main body of operation and the management method regarding the warrant money should be additionally discussed. Furthermore, rigid enforcement of regulation is required with active cooperation with the police authorities to prevent illicit private loan market from expanding as the capital and warrant money requirements are being introduced.
Loan business adverts should be restricted during the TV viewing time zone for adolescents reflecting the legislation cases of other type of advertisements. Warnings highlighting the loans with high interest should be exposed for a longer period of time as well while detailed guidelines for deceptive or exaggerated advertisements should also be established. It is ideal to revise the law so that the loan contract is issued prior to receiving the loan itself. To prevent excessive loan, credit information of the loaners should be shared amongst them. When considering the restrictions for excessive borrowing and credit offering in regards to the major shareholders, not only credit offerings but also ‘investments’ should be limited. In terms of interest rate, when compared to Japan, in the long term, it seems necessary to lower the upper limit of the highest interest rate. Current restriction, so-called the ‘sunset clause’ which becomes ineffective after a certain period of time, does not seem to be highly effective.
In addition, if the law which prohibits the employment of those with criminal records were to gain effectiveness, a new regulation allowing background checks for criminal records should be established. Also, it is necessary to ban collection entrust and prohibit the loaners from selling the bonds to those who are not qualified. To increase the effectiveness of the financial authorities’ inspection & supervision, a new regulation which allows requests for financial transaction information of the loaners should be established as well. Inviting public participation to raise funds should be reviewed positively, especially in the long term point of view. However, in this case, the loaner’s borrowing rate of interest decreases and thus, in response to such condition, the optimum rate of interest should be lowered.