On 14 January 2019, the European Commission launched a consultation to evaluate the Consumer Credit Directive (2008/48/EC) (CCD). More information on the consultation process is available on the European Commission's website here.
Feedback can be received from now until 8 April 2019 via the online questionnaire.
Target audience
The European Commission states that the goal of the open public consultation is to ensure that all relevant stakeholders have the opportunity to express their views on the functioning of the CCD. The primary stakeholders of the CCD are consumers and creditors across the EU. However, besides these two, other stakeholders are indirectly or potentially impacted, alongside actors in charge of implementing these provisions. Attention will also be given to stakeholders possessing detailed know-how and to organisations or individuals having an interest on this subject.
Specific stakeholder categories:
- Consumers
- Creditors/Providers (be it traditional or incumbents)
- Credit intermediaries
- Credit registers
- Trade, business and professional associations
- Consumer organisations
- Similar non-governmental associations, platforms and networks
- Consultancies
- Research and academia
- National, local, regional and international public authorities
- Other public or mixed entities
Why is the European Commission consulting?
The development of a deeper and fairer single market is one of the European Commission’s key priorities. As part of this objective, the European Commission is working on facilitating consumers’ access to good quality financial services offered outside their Member State. Regarding consumer credit in particular, the CCD was adopted to encourage cross-border credit agreements while ensuring high protection standards for consumers.
The CCD guarantees consumers the right to withdraw from the credit contract within 14 days, the right to early repayment of the credit, and imposes on credit providers an obligation to perform a creditworthiness assessment prior to the conclusion of the agreement. It also ensures that all consumers across the European Union receive standard, easily comparable pre-contractual information regarding the main features of credit offers.
Since 2008, the market has significantly evolved and several other EU pieces of legislations have been adopted in the different fields – also relevant for the provision of consumer credit - like mortgages, data protection, anti-money laundering and payment services.
Ten years after its adoption, the European Commission is therefore launching a second Evaluation to assess whether the CCD is still fit for purpose, given all the market developments that have occurred since 2008. In doing so, the Commission will be able to gauge the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and EU added value of the CCD.
EC Consumer Finance Action Plan (2017) and Evaluation Roadmap (June 2018)
This consultation relates to the European Commission’s 2017 Consumer Finance Action Plan, whereby it undertook to explore ways of facilitating cross-border access to consumer credit, while ensuring a high level of consumer protection, including with a focus on creditworthiness assessment standards and credit registers.
The European Commission published an evaluation roadmap on the CCD in June 2018, where further background information and feedback (on the initiative more generally) from June and July of 2018 is available.
The full evaluation of the CCD is due to conclude by the end of 2019 (adoption is stated to be planned for the 'fourth quarter of 2019').
