Sms-lån : Kreditgivning med bristande konsumentskydd

Sammanfattning: The subject of sms-loans is examined by using primary and secondary sources’. This form of credit is formally independent from other obligations with a very short credit period and the amount of the loan is low. This form of credits is applied by mobile phones and on the internet by several companies, some of them are presented in this essay. These type of creditors do not come under any sanctions from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority as is customary for other creditors, they only need to register. Within the consumer credit legislation from 1992 there are some exceptions in the 5a, 6 and 9 §§ concerning credit rating, information and agreements in writing. These exceptions are the reasons that make sms-loans possible. The current legislation on this subject is identified and the exceptions are further explained in the essay. Within this type of credit the consumer protection differs from other types of loans with higher credit amounts. This is also due to the exceptions within the law. The current consumer credit legislation is based on a council directive from 1987, where it is optional for the member states to include these exceptions or not in their legislation. The legislator in Sweden adopted these exceptions, as they did not predict any risk of over indebtedness. In the law-making process documented in the government bill 1991/92:83, this risk was considered as non-existent, although this risk of over indebtedness was observed by the Swedish Consumer Agency and the Swedish Enforcement Authority. The statistics of the official non-payment notices confirms this observation. These authorities and the non-governmental organisation, The Swedish Consumers’ Association, have since 2006 and onwards been pushing for a change of the legislation according to the abrogation of the exceptions. Within several official publications the complexity of sms-loans are described, such as the lack of consumer protection and the risk of over indebtedness. The Swedish Consumer Agency is the supervising authority regarding this legislation field, and the companies providing sms-loans. When the Agency discharges one’s official duties, the Marketing Act is the legislation in use. The Swedish Market Court has convicted creditors, but none of the verdicts were related to the exceptions. The lack of consumer protection is also noticed in the EU, and a new council directive was adopted in 2008. This has now been implemented into a memorandum and the appurtenant draft bill. The intention with this bill is to enforce the consumer protection and to reduce the risk of over indebtedness, when consumers obtain credit. This bill is intended to become effective at 1 of January 2011.