FCCPC urges unregulated institutions to comply with CBN standards

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), has urged unregulated digital money lending entities to comply with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) standards.

Mr Babatunde Irukera, the Executive Vice Chairman of FCCPC, said this when he engaged with the public via twitter on Wednesday.

Irukera said the commission adopted the CBN standards as an interim position.

He said that some activities of unregulated money lenders were anti-competitive for Micro-Finance Banks and other regulated entities involved in digital money lending.

Irukera said the Federal Government was only concerned about interest rates calculation, privacy violation, harassment and mischaracterising borrowers in the digital money lending space.

He described some of their activities to borrowers and creditors as abusive, defamatory and illegal.

"The Federal Government is certainly not averse to the products of digital lending because it is one of the fastest ways of increasing our penetration rate to financial inclusion.

"But the question is that it must be done in a way that their services to the vulnerable people in the society do not turn to exploitation.

"The point that we are now as the FCCPC, is to adopt what the prevailing CBN's standards are, insisting that those money lending institutions not regulated by the CBN comply with similar standards,'' he said.

Irukera said that part of the operational guidelines given to digital money lenders by the Commission was to have a consumer feedback mechanism.

He said the guideline postulated that the feedback mechanism must be open, easily accessible, clear and functional that the FCCPC could have visibility into.

The executive vice chairman said that a dissatisfied borrower or guarantor could reach the digital money institution and they fix the problem.