MANILA, Philippines — Debtors are being harassed by online lending platforms and interest rates are excessively increased if they fail to pay on time, leading a senator to file a resolution to probe online lending platforms.
Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva filed Senate Resolution 641 to investigate the rise of unauthorized and unregistered online lending platforms, as hundreds of Filipinos continue to suffer from abusive collection and debt recovery practices.
“Our office has been receiving hundreds of complaints from people who were harassed, intimidated and shamed by the collecting agents of these online lending platforms for being unable to pay their loans on time,” Villanueva said.
In several cases, Villanueva said that some lending firms unduly increased interest rates and other charges for failure to pay on schedule.
There are also reports that some online lending platforms are irresponsibly harvesting data, violating their client’s right to privacy and safe and secure transactions.
Early this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission revoked the Certificates of Registration of 2,084 lending and financing companies that failed to secure their Certificates of Authority (CA) and canceled the CA of 39 financing and lending companies due to various violations.