The head of the NBU emphasized that the way microloans are provided today is “disregarding the rights of consumers and pushing them into a pit of debt, an extremely profitable business model for financial institutions that actually paralyzes people’s lives.”
On November 22, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law limiting the maximum rate on microloans to 1% per day. Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Andrey Pyshny reported this on Facebook.
Pyshny noted that the need to transform the market for non-banking services, especially the microcredit segment, is long overdue.
The NBU chairman added: “The way microloans are provided today effectively disregards the rights of consumers, pushing them into a debt hole; it is an extremely profitable business model for financial institutions and actually cripples people’s lives.” added the NBU chairman.
As Pyshny notes, today there is a clear bias in favor of the creditor, and this turns an absolutely civilized financial service, which should help people in various life situations, into an unbearable debt yoke that puts pressure on both the consumer and often his entire family. .
What innovations does the adopted law include:
- Enters the maximum credit cost. That is, interest rate limits will be determined not to exceed 1% per day.
“We will reach this figure gradually in 8 months: In the first 4 months, the rate will be 2.5 percent, in the next 4 months it will be 1.5 percent and thereafter it will not exceed 1 percent. Today, these figures are unlimited and sometimes reach thousands of percent annually.” ” he says in the message.
- This will allow the NBU to establish minimum requirements for checking the borrower’s creditworthiness by financial companies, which will qualitatively reduce the debt burden per borrower. Therefore, “overnight loan in 1 minute” will be a thing of the past.
- It prohibits the lender from unilaterally automatically extending the term of the loan.
“After all, due to inattention, the consumer may not know that he has moved to the next round, so to speak, and the creditor is in no hurry to report this. All payments must be announced to the consumer,” he explains. Chairman of the NBU.
- The law also provides for additional penalties for violation of established requirements.
“No one will be able to exceed the requirements of the law,” Pyshny emphasized.
Microcredit law: details
Let us remind you that on November 22, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted bill No. 9422 on limiting microcredit interest rates.
The bill on amendments to some legal acts of Ukraine on improving state regulation of financial services markets was supported by 255 parliamentarians.
The authors of the document claim that adoption of the document is Ukraine’s obligation to the International Monetary Fund.
“Parliament generally adopted bill No. 9422 on limiting microcredit interest rates of the Central Bank,” wrote MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
Let us remind you that experts noted that after the crisis in the microcredit market at the beginning of the great war with Russia, Ukrainians received 650 thousand microcredits every month. Focus I found out how much Ukrainians currently owe to financial institutions.
We also recall that in June 2023, Parliament passed Bill 9051, which proposes the mandatory restructuring of consumer obligations on loans not secured by collateral, during martial law and within 30 days after its removal.
Source: Focus
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