BANKS and non-bank financial institutions offering loans will not be banned from requiring fees for administering loan accounts, after parliament rejected an amendment through which opposition MPs Lucia Žitňanská and Miroslav Beblavý attempted to introduce the ban, the TASR newswire reported.
The amendment failed to make it through parliament when the MPs from the ruling Smer party abstained from the vote.
“Such an account is not something that the consumer would need,” Beblavý argued as reported by TASR. “A debtor could pay the loan by transferring money directly to the account of the bank.” A loan account is merely a more comfortable solution for the banks; the clients do not need it but still must pay for it, Beblavý added.
Beblavý has recently started an initiative calling on people to request the money paid on administration fees back from their banks, and to sue the banks if they fail to return the money. It is possible that courts in Slovakia might rule in favour of the consumers as they did in Germany and in the Czech Republic, according to Beblavý.
