KONSUMENTENKREDIT-RICHTLINIE - Zehn Fragen zur nationalen Diskussion der europäischen Konsumentenkreditregelung! The enlargement of the credit market and the abolition of legal protectionism combined with increased competition and innovation shall improve the supply of credit. However, maintaining credit that is affordable, accessible, and comes with sufficient precautions against overindebtedness is equally important. As presently the Commission, the European Parliament and many major suppliers onesidedly support the enlargement of the credit market, other stakeholders have to focus on the possible negative effects of these developments for individual consumers, debtors, national traditions and culture. the following questions may help to structure the discussion. 1. Will increased detailed and extensive credit information in marketing, precontractual customer relations and during the contractual phase itself, combined with a duty to advice on such information truly help especially weak consumers or just increase exclusion, cost and requirements to inform for them? 2. Can national debtor protection be compensated with more information and greater transparency? Will the absence of regulations prohibiting predatory lending practices in refinancing, pyramiding, brokerage and guarantees, revolving credit, payday loans, doorstep credit lead to more or to less productive ef-fects of the use of credit for individuals? 3. Are national consumer protection laws in the area of financial services a major unnecessary barrier to enlarged European markets and will consumers use the offered freedom for their advantage? 4. Will adopting a legal principle of “responsible lending” help to prevent overindebtedness or will it further exclude and limit access for people from a productive use of credit? Will it further weaken data and privacy protection? 5. Can information substitute for a principle that promotes affordable credit and especially its adapted servicing in the repayment phase? 6. Will the abolition of national credit laws through the legal principle of “total” or “maximum harmonisation” weaken national cultures of product de-sign, supervision through increased standardization? Will it exclude small local and trustworthy competitors who cannot afford worldwide standardized systems but have been pivotal in debt prevention in the past? Will enlarged markets offer more products or only more choices with in an extremely reduced variety of offers and will the sole profit of lower prices enhance the social and economic welfare of all consumers alike? 7. Will credit supply by less supervised non-banks (e.g., finance companies and credit card companies) lead to expensive, smallscale revolving credit and encourage predatory lending practices that will be hard to control? 8. Will the abolition of the handwritten form in credit and guarantee and its replacement by the electronic signature on the internet (“debt by mouseclick”) cause more unconscious borrowing and more unconscionable lending practices? 9. Will the principle of mutual recognition instead of the principle of consumers’ home country control, break international agreements and will newly introduced fees for early repayment prohibit consumers from paying back their debts while those countries are most favoured that have the lowest standards in consumer protection and supervision law? Will European citizens who now have to obey foreign law be likely to increase their trust into European institutions? 10. Will the new regulation whose exemptions and disclosure regulations favour special forms of credit like leasing, small credit, linked agreements in cross-selling of expensive insurance products with high fees, provisions and premiums discriminate against foreseeable and acquainted transparent forms of bank instalment credit? Will unsafe credit card debt, overdraft, variable rate credit, credit packaging and refinancing by non-bans overtake the supply of the weaker classes in society? ID: 37006 Autor(en): iff Erscheinungsdatum: 26.04.06     Ten Questions Concerning the Consumer Credit Directive (78364 Bytes)

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Erzeugt: 15.03.06. Letzte Änderung: 05.05.06.
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