Companies granting consumer credit to be supervised by the Financial Supervisory Authority from 1 July 2023
Supervision of companies granting consumer credit will be transferred to the Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) from 1 July 2023. Currently, the Regional State Administrative Agency of Southern Finland is responsible for this task. In the future, the operating practices of such companies will be monitored by the FIN-FSA in the same way as other lenders.Finnish households’ indebtedness, in terms of both housing loans and consumer credit, is at a high level. As part of the effort to curb household over-indebtedness, legislation has been enacted which centralises credit supervision in one authority. Supervision of consumer lending and peer-to-peer loan brokers will be transferred from the Regional State Administrative Agency of Southern Finland to the FIN-FSA from the beginning of July 2023.
Companies granting consumer credit are required to register with the supervising authority and must meet the requirements for registration throughout the duration of their operations. In the future, the companies’ operating practices, such as sales, marketing and lending principles, will be supervised by the FIN-FSA in the same way as other lenders. The FIN-FSA will conduct regular inspections of the supervised entities and, where necessary, impose administrative sanctions for any perceived omissions. There are currently 45 registered credit providers in Finland.
“The FIN-FSA welcomes the new supervised entities within the scope of our proactive and predictable supervision. We will engage with entities by assessing, among other things, their compliance with information according to registration requirements, their fulfilment of obligations under the Money Laundering Act as well as their management of insolvency risks. The review will provide us with a comprehensive picture of the current state of supervised entities and help us to target risk-based supervision in the future,” says Samu Kurri, Head of Department.
The Consumer Ombudsman also has the power to supervise companies operating in the consumer credit market.
At the end of 2022, the stock of consumer credit granted by consumer credit and microloan companies to Finnish households stood at, according to the Bank of Finland, EUR 154 million, with an average interest rate of 35%.
Contact information
Samu Kurri, Head of Department, Digitalisation and Analysis. Requests for interviews are coordinated by FIN-FSA Communications, tel. +358 9 183 5030, Mon-Fri 9.00-16.00.