The national police agency issued the report as to the status of the enforcement against the illegal money lendings in the first half of this year, in July 26, 2007.[1]
Statistics
According to the report, the number of the arrested lenders was 431 people on 227 cases. The figure was growing largely compared with same period statistics in last year; 78 people were arrested in 79 cases. Concerning the statistics already was already published on the NPA web-site.[2]The figure of statistics includes both the non-registered business and the predatory lending against the Act on Investment Deposits and Interest Rates.[3] The act on investment deposits and interest rates punishes the practice of money lending beyond 109.5% APR.
Details
With all the specifics, the non-registered cases were 60 whereas predatory lending cases were 76. On the contrary, the number of victims was 77,850 and 38,003 were decreased from the same period of last year.The amount of damage was 11,251,700,000 yen; 1,482,860,000 were also diminished. About 30% of criminals in 69 cases were gangsters or members of criminal syndicate.Law reform[4] The reason of the increase of the number of arrest is supposed to the result of related law reforms.On December 13, 2006, the Act on Investment Deposits and Interest Rates and the Money Lending Business Act[5] were revised.
Registration
The Money Lending Business Law strengthened the registration requirement: the authorities have to confirm the identity of appliers of the registration (art.4 (2)); the particular appliers such as a gangster can not register in the money lending business (art.6); the applier needs to equip the certain amount of assets (art.6 (1) no.14); certified responsible person is necessary to be deployed to each branches (art.27-2).
Punishment
Practice of asking predatory interest rate is punishment by imprisonment up to 5 years and/or a fine up to 10,000,000 yen in fine (30,000,000 yen in legal person).
Non-registered business is punishment by imprisonment up to 5 years and/or a fine up to 10,000,000 yen (100,000,000 yen in legal person); the advertisement or solicitation conducted by the non-registered business is punishment by a fine up to 1,000,000 yen.
Particular practices concerning the debt collection also are prohibited more stringent. The law stipulates the specific practices regarding the debt collection: visiting to borrowers in night without legitimate reasons; visiting or ringing to any places excluding borrowers’home such as a work place; demanding repayments to third parties excepting borrowers. The offence of these restrictions is punishment by imprisonment up to 2 years and/or a fine up to 3,000,000 yen.
[1] Mainich Shimbun from http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/shakai/jiken/news/20070726k0000e040021000c.html
[2] http://www.npa.go.jp/safetylife/seikan35/20070223.pdf
[3] http://www.houko.com/00/01/S29/195.HTM
[4] http://www.mof-kantou.go.jp/kinyuu/jyouhou/yamikintaisakuhou.htm
