Meeting on consumers' rights protection has been held in the National Bank of Georgia

Consumer protection issues were discussed at the meeting between the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia, Giorgi Kadagidze and the authorities of the commercial banks. The representatives of financial institutions which are actively involved in the consumer lending were gathered today in the National Bank of Georgia.

Recently, the discounts and special offers on the consumer’ credits made by commercial banks reached undesirable scale, reflected by the ambiguous and misleading information provided by the advertisements.  Along with the fact that this significantly harms consumers’ interests, it also carries a serious reputational risk both for separate banks and for the banking sector as a whole. The seriousness of this issue is attested by the frequent calls from dissatisfied consumers to the National Bank’s hotline as well as the negative opinions and comments on the current offers in the social networks.

“Banking sector continues stable development in the highly competitive environment, this being the reason of a decreasing trend which has become evident in interest rates in the recent years. At the same time more and more innovative products appear on the market. During this process commercial banks’ advertising has been quite aggressive, which is good. At the same time advertisement campaigns misleading the consumers and which may contain incomplete information or create the wrong expectations are unacceptable. That was the precise reason for today’s meeting, we are thoroughly monitoring this process, and we don’t even rule out changes which would make the legislations somewhat stricter. A very strict ethical standard must exist in the banking sector, which will be observed by each and every commercial bank.  At the same time, I would also like to take this opportunity and advise the consumers to read contracts carefully before signing, and in case of any claims, contact the consumer rights protection division of the National Bank of Georgia, where all claims will be considered”- said the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia, Giorgi Kadagidze.

On today’s meeting Giorgi Kadagidze talked about the recent claims related to the fast payment machines: “National Bank of Georgia will study this issue, as there are some questions to all participants, including the mobile operators. How could have it happened that all three mobile operators at the same time had decided to change the policy and on the same day sent to the participants identical contracts, which in reality meant the increase in the price of their services. We are studying the financial situation of the fast payment machines, what is the probability of their bankruptcy; we are also studying the commercial banks’ free of charge offers - are those just common marketing tactics or temporal dumping price, to make the financially weaker competitors leave the market. Within several days we will be able to make the conclusion and to react within our competence”- said the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia.