RBF revises policy guideline for licensed credit institutions

The Reserve Bank of Fiji has revised the policy guideline in fees and charges for licensed credit institutions in Fiji.

The policy is applicable to three licensed credit institutions, Home Finance Co Ltd, Merchant Finance Co Limited and Credit Corporation Limited.

The policy guideline is a review of the July 2002 Disclosure of Fees and Charges Policy which the institutions have implemented for over 10 years.

The revised policy guideline, effective from first October this year imposes several new disclosure requirements on the credit institutions, however, the key initiatives are in the standardization and details on fees, charges and interest rates required to be disclosed.

The Governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji Barry Whiteside said that the policy statement is the culmination of three years of work towards ensuring that customers get sufficient information before deciding to take a loan or invest in a time deposit during the term of the loan or deposit and when it is paid off.

He said that the requirements have been chosen to provide customers with relevant information to enable them to make sound decisions after comparing carefully the features and costs of products available.

He is urging all customers to make good use of the information provided by banks and credit institutions to ensure they understand what they were buying and how much they would be paying for a product or a service.

He said that this completes the first phase of the Reserve Bank’s work on reforming fees and charges charged by licensed credit institutions in the country as the second phase, which is in progress is the review of all current fees and charges of the credit institutions.


Story by: Sneh Chaudhry