BSP, SEC to come up with policy vs. social media-based lenders

Lawyer Elmore Capule, senior assistant governor and general counsel of BSP, said the central monetary board received information on individuals or groups that offered loans through social media and ended up shaming their debtors who failed to pay their obligations. (File Photo: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas/Facebook)

CEBU CITY – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Friday said it has been working closely with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in crafting a clear-cut policy against lenders who are offering loans using social media as a platform.

Lawyer Elmore Capule, senior assistant governor and general counsel of BSP, said the central monetary board received information on individuals or groups that offered loans through social media and ended up shaming their debtors who failed to pay their obligations.

“What we have to have is a memorandum of agreement as to where our jurisdiction starts and up to what is their (SEC) jurisdiction,” Capule said on the sidelines of the regional information campaign on the amendments of the BSP charter at the Marco Polo Hotel here.

Under the Lending Company Act, investors or entities that offer money for lending as a business need to incorporate and register with the SEC, he pointed out.

“If they don’t incorporate or register as a lending company, they are criminally and administratively liable,” he stressed.

Capule said the BSP has jurisdiction over lending firms because of their power to supervise activities like “credit granting,” which is essentially lending.

“We are looking at credit-granting entities which may have an impact on the entire economy,” he explained.

Capule also said that the National Privacy Commission (NPC) needs to be part of regulating lending firms proliferating via social media who resort to shaming their clients if they could not pay their debts.

These lending institutions, he said, have violated the privacy rights of their debtors by divulging their shamed client’s private information on social media.

Capule, however, clarified that only the court can declare illegal the “excessive and unconscionable” interest rates from loans from social media-based lending organizations, because of the repeal of the Usury Law.