There is concern in the area about the proliferation of illegal loans that, unfortunately, have consequences for those who request them and who, for one reason or another, cannot meet the demands of these lenders.
These actions, imported from other lands, need to be combated by specialized entities in order to provide security to the population. This is the opinion of Claudio Ortiz from Rancagua, president of the Financial Retail Association, an entity that groups the large commercial houses at a national level.
Speaking to El Rancagüino TV, Ortiz pointed out that “this is an issue that has been developing in recent years and it has us very worried, because it generates a lot of concern in people and it is very easy to fall into this type of system that is not only these informal loans in person, which are granted, well known as the “gota a gota”. This is a mechanism that was imported, I would say, in some way from some countries in the region and that has been transformed over time into an increasingly complex issue, especially due to the ways in which they are granted and subsequently how the collection is carried out.”
Furthermore, the executive added that “this is no longer a purely local issue, but rather a cross-border issue, given the development of information technology and informal applications that grant this type of credit. And, therefore, we have to take charge and protect the population to prevent them from falling into this type of informal credit.”
Ortiz also recalled that this problem has been brought to the attention of various bodies, such as the Financial Market Commission and SERNAC. The same with the National Chamber of Commerce, he says. “We have met with the national prosecutor’s office. We have been knocking on all these doors because we want to raise this concern. I have been in contact in recent days with the president of the Rancagua Chamber of Commerce, Rodrigo Zúñiga, who is very concerned about this matter and is available to promote a work agenda in this direction,” since “urgent preventive measures must be taken so that the problems we are experiencing in Santiago are mitigated when they try to enter, let’s say, Rancagua.”
Likewise, the president of the Financial Retail Association added that this type of event, “today is one of the pillars of organized crime, just like illegal trade. Until recently, illegal trade was seen as a matter of precarious work and many times the different governments turned a blind eye, thinking that it was a way for certain people to earn a living. And every day, both illegal trade and informal credit have been transformed into two important pillars of organized crime. So this has to be addressed from that perspective and for that we have to organize ourselves.” For this reason, he said, “we have to develop a collaborative strategy both from the different institutions of the public sector as well as the private sector. Until now, this has been addressed in a rather disintegrated way. Only in recent years has this been taken as a more global and more integrated issue and we clearly visualize there three levels of institutions that have to be prepared to address this matter.”
Finally, Claudio Ortiz pointed out that “we have to educate people, because if there is illegal trade, there is informal credit. If people refrain from buying in illegal trade, in some way the market would automatically make this situation disappear. So, the first line is the awareness of each citizen to avoid buying in illegal trade because they are doing themselves a disservice. Ultimately, they are encouraging a bad practice that in the long run, as long as they operate in that scenario, they have no protection whatsoever.”
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