MANILA, Philippines — The Securities and Exchange Commission has released a draft memorandum circular that proposes penalties and sanctions against financing and lending companies that use threats and other unfair debt collection practices. Under the new memo, unfair collection practices include the use of threats, violence or excessive communication, and public disclosure of personal and even false information about the borrower. "As the overseer of financing and lending companies, the commission will take all the necessary steps to tackle abusive, unethical and unfair practices of collecting debt,” said SEC Chairperson Emilio Aquino. The SEC said that while companies should pursue the collection of amounts owed to them, they should also do this through fair and true collection practices. Lending and financing companies found to be using unfair debt collection practices face a fine of P25,000 and P50,000 pesos, respectively, on their first offense.

Source: Philippine Star May 23, 2019 09:43 UTC