Customers, protected in relation with the banks
The Senate has passed four draft laws on consumer protection in relation with the banks.
Daniela Budu, 12.12.2019, 14:00
Romanian senators have passed a number of draft laws on protecting consumers in relation with the banks, initiated by the head of the Economic Committee, the Social Democrat Daniel Zamfir. Among them is a draft law regarding consumer protection against the exchange rate risks in bank loan contracts, which stipulates that a consumer can ask the bank for the conversion of loans to the exchange rate valid at the moment the loan was granted, plus 20%.
If the bank does not do this voluntarily, in 45 days, the customer can go to Court and interest rates are suspended until the Court rules on the matter. Social Democrat Senator Daniel Zamfir: “This law finally does justice to the people who took out loans in Swiss francs, and had to go through the 2008 financial crisis alone. Interest rates were way beyond people’s incomes and the law that we now propose is trying to make things right.”
On the other hand, the National Liberal Party, in power, is against the draft law, saying it promotes populist measures. Leader of the Liberal senators, Daniel Fenechiu: “We are trying to intervene, to block the rules of the market economy with this sort of populist measures, which will never be efficient because they break an essential rule of the market economy, that is the supply and demand game, and this is not what protecting the consumer is about.”
The other laws passed by senators regard foreclosure and excessive interest rates. The project of protecting consumers against speculative debt assignments, bans the transfer of loans. If the bank transfers the loan, it is consider speculative loan and the debtor is free of the debt after paying a price, that is the price for which the bank further sold the loan.
“The same thing would happen in the case of loans reaching collectors of overdue paiments, and the law, as it is at present, shows that this also applies to outstanding loans, including the ones in Swiss francs,” Zamfir has said.
Another project adopted by senators refers to consumer protection against abusive foreclosure. According to Daniel Zamfir, the draft law is a form of protecting family houses. The representatives of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) say these laws improve things and, even if they are not perfect, they will reach the Chamber of Deputies, the decision making body in this case, which can improve them. (Translated by Elena Enache)
