신용카드 채무면제·유예계약의 법률관계에 관한 소고

Recently there have been some issues and controversies over a financial service sold to credit card holder that provides the credit card holder suffering from disability, unemployment, death or some other event with relief or suspension from making payment of credit card debt in exchange for additional fee, which means Debt Cancellation Debt Suspension(DCDS). And that credit card company usually makes contract with insurance company that transfers the risk taken by credit card company through DCDS contract to insurer, which means, Contractual Liability Insurance Policy(CLIP). As there are few researches on the legal nature of DCDS and CLIP, the regulation on those financial services are difficult to provide, despite of growing numbers of dispute between customers and service providers. This article canvasses the cases of overseas on DCDS and the legal nature of DCDS and give path to regulations on those services to protect consumers. DCDS can be offered in connection with any type of consumer loan, including credit cards. As DCDS is sold with other pre-existing contracts such as credit card contracts, it has similarity with add-on insurance and has high possibility to mislead or cause a resonable person to reach an erroneous belief about certain information pertaining to DCDS. And there has been a debate on the nature of DCDS relating to the supervision power on that service between the OCC and NAIC in US. Even though the supreme court judged DCDS not to be an insurance, the debate on the legal nature of DCDS is still going on after the legislation of Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act(GLBA). DCDS differs from a credit insurance in several respects. The transference of risk is a hallmark of insurance but DCDS does not involve the transfer of risk to a third party. DCDS involves only two parties: a credit card holder and credit card company and in DCDS the credit card company retains all the risk. And DCDS does not expose a credit card holder to any insolvency risk, although the transfer of potential liability to the insurance company raises solvency concerns. Such consumer risks do not exist with DCDS because credit card company is merely agreeing to cancel or suspend a debt, an inherent power it has, the credit card holder does not have to worry about the solvency of the company. In conclusion, DCDS contract can be construed not as an insurance contract but as a contact of contingent onerous debt cancellation(suspension) contract. Therefore the Specialized Credit Financial Act is a pertinent channel that can include some supervisory means to protect consumer to buy DCDS.