대부업 규제 및 관리감독의 문제점과 개선방안 - 실효성 제고방안을 중심으로 -

In response to the financial crisis, Korea repealed its ‘Interest Rate Ceiling Act’ in 1998, eliminating controls on interest rates to address the country's urgent economic situation. The move caused interest rates to soar to an annual average rate of 200~300 percent and to grow multiple debt problems. Hence, the government enacted the 'Money Lending Business Law'(MLBL) in 2002 principally to tackle the problem of loan sharking. It provides a framework for the registration of private moneylenders, the control of money lending transactions, and the prohibition of charging excessive interest rates. The MLBL governs all moneylending businesses, whether they are registered with the government or not. Since the enactment of the MLBL, the moneylending industry however has undergone a massive expansion. It means that there are loophole on the regulatory system. Indeed, according to statistics from the Financial Supervisory Agency(FSA) in 2008, around 8.6 million people borrowed money from private moneylenders at an average interest rate of 76 percent. The outstanding balance owed to private moneylenders in 2008 is estimated 1,000 billion Won. There are some 16,000 private moneylenders registered with the korean government and a further approximately 40,000 private moneylenders are operating illegally in the country. Thus, this paper attempt to analyze the efficiency of the regulation by examining a specific portion of the MLBL, namely the regulation of business conduct and argues the necessity of improvement over the regulation of business conduct of moneylender.