The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ordered eight online lending companies to cease operations for not having licenses.
SEC said CashWill, PesoBee, Peso T-Safe Online Cash, RushLoan, SkyMart, SpendCash, Tapa, and WithU have to “immediately cease and desist from operating, engaging in, carrying out, abetting, and/or promoting lending/financing businesses and related activities until they have incorporated and secured from the SEC authorization to pursue such activities.”
The SEC issued the order after finding that none of the groups were registered as a corporation with the Commission. Accordingly, they also lack the certificate of authority to operate as a lending/financing company (CA).
This is clear violation of, and should be penalized pursuant to the Lending Company Regulation Act because it engages in or carries out a lending business without the required license from the Commission, the SEC said.
“The acts of the unregistered online lending operators in illegally offering and providing loans to the public, charging high interest rates, and subjecting its debtors to unfair treatment through abusive and even libelous language in collecting the loaned amount,” it added.
The SEC also found the online lenders imposing “onerous and unreasonable terms, charging high interest rates, and performing acts that violate the right to privacy of their borrowers.”
“The SEC regularly monitors lending and financing companies for their compliance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, as it seeks to protect borrowers from abusive, unethical, and illegal lenders,” it said.
To date, the SEC has canceled the licenses of 36 financing/lending companies due to various violations of applicable rules and regulations.
It has also revoked the certificate of registration of a total of 2,081 lending companies for their failure to secure the requisite certificate of authority.
In a statement, the Department of Finance said the SEC collected P119.07 million in fees and penalties through the Commission’s Electronic System for Payments to SEC (eSPAYSEC) involving 16,898 transactions from the time the project was first implemented on March 1, 2021 up to Jan. 26, 2022.
eSPAYSEC allows the online payment of fees, penalties and other charges using debit and credit cards, digital wallets and other cashless payment options.
The Electronic Filing and Submission Tool, which covers the online submission of the audited financial statement, general information sheet and other reportorial requirements of businesses, processed 169,323 enrollments during the same period with a total of 185,127 reports submitted electronically.
The SEC’s Electronic System for Processing and Registration of Companies, which makes it faster and convenient for corporations to register, processed 48,266 applications from April 11 last year to January 26. – With Angela Celis
