The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) announced the extension of the term for the registration of money lenders.
In recent times, the FCCPC has focused a lot on the activities of these online lenders, especially the illegal ones, on complaints of rights violations and unfair practices, among others.
This disclosure is contained in a statement issued by Chief Executive Officer Babatunde Irukera on Friday in Abuja, where he noted that the 90-day deadline expired on November 14.
FCCPC extends the deadline until January 31
Irukera said the commission considered that some online money lenders were still in the registration process and extended the deadline to January 31, 2023.
- The FCCPC chief said: “On August 18, in support of the Inter-Agency Joint Task Force collaboration, the FCCPC carried out enforcement actions in Lagos with respect to certain DMLs.
- ”In the interest of promoting fair, transparent and beneficial alternative lending opportunities, the Joint Task Force (JTF) established a mutually adopted Limited Interim Registration/Regulatory Framework and Guidelines for Digital Lending by 2022.
- ”Subsequently, the commission began the registration of DML.
- ”Through an August 17 Commission Order and Notice, existing DMLs were required to comply in no more than 90 days to confirm that their business is not interrupted.
- “The commission has also created a publicly accessible list of DMLs that have been granted approvals/conditional approvals.”
The CEO said that the list of approved DMLs would be regularly updated and accessible here
for the records
- Recall that on March 11, the Federal Government, in an investigation through its joint committee that investigates violations of rights and unfair practices, closed some illegal online money lending banks for not registering with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and participate in activities against the rights of Nigerian consumers.
- These online banks charged interest rates that violate the ethics of how loans are made and were involved in naming and shaming, which is a violation of people’s privacy regarding how these lenders recover loans, among other violations. .
The FCCPC recently published a limited interim registration and regulatory framework for digital lending while they worked on a more comprehensive framework to guide the operations of digital lenders in Nigeria. The Commission created a registration form to be completed and submitted by those operating in the digital lending industry.
The 2 main issues that the FCCPC sought to address with this framework are unethical interest rates and the violation of consumer privacy and other unethical lending practices perpetrated by uncontrolled digital lenders.