By majority and after almost 10 hours of session, the deputies of the Congress of the Republic approved this Thursday, February 15, the Credit Card Law, which will regulate said credit activity that until this Wednesday, February 15, was only regulated by the Credit Card Code. Trade.
Decree 2-2024 that includes the Credit Card Law had 128 votes in favor.
Prior to its approval, the deputies discussed the amendments to several articles of said regulations, which were then put to a vote in the plenary session.
At times the deputies met in the center of the chamber to discuss and reach consensus on the amendments that were presented prior to the approval of the Credit Card Law, which was part of the nine points that were scheduled for this Thursday.
Flores also stated that in his opinion there are opinions that should not be considered in this discussion.
Some deputies agreed that this law does not regulate the market or interest rates, but it does create better conditions for account holders.
During this Thursday’s session, at least 10 amendments to articles included in the bill were presented.
For example, an amendment was approved with 95 votes with which cooperatives can issue credit cards without being regulated by the Banking Law, according to deputy Álvaro Arzú.
The text is removed: “in the same way that entities regulated by the Law of Banks and Financial Groups do so.”
This modification was made derived from the opinion of the Superintendency of Banks (SIB), according to parliamentarians
The amendment with which it is mandatory that a payment agreement be made effective was approved with 130 votes and another was approved with 124 to state that the issuer of the card informs the account holder about the interest and exchange rates that can be give during the contract.
Meanwhile, articles 17 to 32 of the Law were approved without any modification with 134 votes and with 132 votes an amendment was approved so that credit card issuers comply with international security standards.
The discussion in the plenary session focused on an amendment the UNE presented on two occasions to include in the Credit Card Law a new article to cap interest rates at 3%.
The amendment did not obtain the votes, since some deputies argued that regulating interest rates could cause the law to be declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court (CC).
Opinions
Recently, Prensa Libre consulted several specialists about the initiative that now becomes the Credit Card Law and this is what they said.
Érick Coyoy, an analyst at the Association for Research and Social Studies (Asies), considers that the good thing about the law is that it tries to set limits on the interest charges, late payments and fines that issuers usually make when people cannot pay the entire debt.
In any case, it is considered the responsibility of each person to control their expenses, according to their ability to pay, but many times emergencies occur and people do not have another accessible financing option.
According to Coyoy, it is also positive and important that the Superintendency of Banks (SIB) itself and the card issuers promote financial education campaigns so that people are completely clear about the costs they assume when using this type of financing.
At its discretion, all recommendations for changes made at the time by the Superintendency of Banks must be taken into account to ensure that the necessary technical standards are met. (According to the SIB letter of February 12, 2024, their observations in 2019 were taken into account).
Regarding the supervision of card issuers, the SIB must do it, something similar to what happens with insurers, which regardless of whether they are part of a financial group, are supervised by the SIB, which is the entity most qualified to do so. , says the Asíes analyst. When asked about what was bad or ugly, he indicated that he did not see anything bad or ugly to highlight in the proposed law.
David Casasola, analyst at the National Economic Research Center (Cien), said that it is important to provide information to the consumer, especially with a product that becomes complex to manage such as a credit card.
“In this line of analysis, it is also favorable that payment agreements are facilitated and that the installments allow the cardholder to make capital payments. It is important to identify whether the application can use any technological tool that facilitates the logistics of signing contracts and at an institutional level it is important to guarantee the attraction of professionals who have the tools to do the supervision work in a technical manner through of the DIACO,” he noted.
In turn, the president of the central bank, Álvaro González Ricci, stated that the good thing is a demand from credit card users, since many of them consider that there have been abuses in the management of collections, for example, although this already has a regulation, as well as interest rates, among others.
“We are looking for better training or for card issuers to be able to carry out financial training; that the billing table be made publicly known; which emitter is cheaper; and the fact that cooperatives can issue credit cards is also seen positively.”
Regarding the bad, he said that nothing is perceived, if the law passes as it is, because it is something that the banks have already analyzed and clearly there is a lack of regulation. “There are many people with extremely high debts that they have not been able to pay off and the least of the problems is that poor performance and behavior in payment goes to the credit reference system of the Superintendency of Banks, and when someone with a bad record goes to a financial institution to request credit, its image has been damaged.”
2024-02-16 06:18:39
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