Translated material
Rospotrebnadzor does not give up
Gennady Onishchenko promises to apply new enforcement measures to banks
The Central Bank agreed with the Prosecutor General's Office on joint participation in protecting the rights of bank borrowers and conducting inspections in credit institutions , which receive complaints from offended clients. This was stated yesterday by the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Gennady Onishchenko, summing up the results of a meeting dedicated to the protection of rights in the field of consumer lending. Whether this means that employees of the Prosecutor General’s Office will now come to the banks that receive the most complaints, along with inspectors from the Central Bank, is not clear from his words. But Mr. Onishchenko named the two credit organizations that are most often complained about - “Russian Standard” and “Home Credit and Finance Bank”. And although so far both market leaders have mostly won court cases related to disputes over credit fees and fines, this does not stop Rospotrebnadzor: Mr. Onishchenko is counting on revenge and promises not only to continue litigation, but also to publish citizens’ complaints against banks .Yesterday's meeting of Rospotrebnadzor concerned the legal aspects of protecting rights in the field of consumer lending, Mr. Onishchenko told Interfax. It was attended by representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office, the Supreme Arbitration Court, and the Bank of Russia. According to him, during the meeting, the Bank of Russia and the Prosecutor General’s Office “agreed on joint actions to exchange information and carry out supervisory measures to protect loan recipients.”
From July 1, the Central Bank will indeed purposefully check loan agreements between banks and individuals. From the moment the requirement to disclose the effective rate on a loan (that is, its full cost) is introduced, the regulator will begin to selectively check banks’ loan agreements, Alexey Simanovsky, head of the Central Bank’s banking supervision department, said on Monday. But it is unlikely that the Prosecutor General’s Office has enough free staff to conduct regular inspections of every bank that issues loans. However, according to Mr. Onishchenko, the largest number of consumer complaints come from Russian Standard and Home Credit: “So, according to the territorial department of Rospotrebnadzor in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the first half of the year more than 700 complaints from citizens were recorded, of which 560 are complaints about Russian Standard Bank.
Rospotrebnadzor has more than once ordered these banks to change the standard loan agreement, ridding it of “extra”, in its opinion, fees for maintaining a loan account and fines for late payments. It is worth noting that banks are gradually changing their offers, sometimes removing the commission for maintaining a loan account, but there is no talk of giving it up completely - this is an income item. Therefore, both Home Credit and Russian Standard are challenging the orders of Rospotrebnadzor and its branches in court, and also defending their positions before borrowers. So far, in cases considered in Moscow, the score is slightly in favor of the banks. For example, yesterday Russian Standard won a court case regarding the collection of additional fees on credit cards, and the other day it won a court case regarding fees for maintaining a loan account and fines on consumer loans. But Rospotrebnadzor is not going to give up and wants to continue trials in subsequent instances.
In the fight for a just cause, he is ready to even worsen the situation of those very consumers whose protection he speaks in court. Just look at the department’s appeal to the fact that, by law, a bank can require a late loan payment to be returned in full ahead of schedule, but not in any way fine the client. This is exactly the position representatives of the service express in the courts. It would be interesting to hear the Central Bank’s opinion on this idea, because each bank has hundreds of clients whose loans are at least a day overdue, and it is at least illogical to withdraw all loans just because the borrower is one day late in payment. Anyone can imagine how a borrower will react if, instead of a fine, they are required to repay the entire loan within a short period of time.
While the head of Rospotrebnadzor is confident that he is right, he is trying different methods of working with unruly banks. “I hasten to inform you that we will simply apply the practice of publishing specific complaints about the actions of this bank,” Gennady Onishchenko said yesterday. “I assure you that the plots of many dramatic works of Russian literature will pale in comparison to the harsh reality of the relationships that the citizens of the country talk about regarding actions in the consumer lending market.”