The new anti-usury act will strike not only at banks and payday lenders, but also at consumers

The Polish government has unveiled proposed amendments to a number of legislative acts with the declared unifying objective of counteracting usury. As these amendments are at the moment, however, they will make life harder not only for banks and for other lenders, but also for the consumers. What, exactly, are the proposed regulations ?  How will they affect the operations of lenders ?  Will they bring actual benefits from the perspective of consumer interests ?  We put these questions to Magdalena Szeplik, advocate with GESSEL. (…)

Reduction of non-interest costs of credit facilities and loans

Polish law presently applies a mechanism for capping non-interest costs of credit facilities to consumer loans only. Under the new rules, a similar mechanism would be applied to all contracts concerning moneylending.

“In this scope, the amendments would concern the Civil Code in its provisions regulating loans. As proposed in the draft legislation, non-interest costs across the entire loan repayment period could not exceed 25% of the entire loan amount, and where these costs do end up higher, only an amount complying with the statutory cap will be payable. The amended Civil Code would also set out a definition of non-interest costs”, Magdalena Szeplik of GESSEL explains to Strefa Inwestorów.

Full text is available (in Polish) on strefainwestorow.pl. If you are interested in an English-language version contact us: kontakt@gessel.pl