Loan sharks keep on biting, survey shows

POLITICS

Many people believe the government's refinance scheme will fail to tackle the loan shark problem, a Suan Dusit poll reveals.

Another poll conducted by a university shows most illegal lenders are "unconcerned" about the government initiative.

Of the 1,422 respondents for the Suan Dusit poll, 43.19% said they were not confident about the programme succeeding because many previous projects implemented by the Democrat-led government were "just not working" and that there was confusion over the details of the scheme.

However, 18% said they were confident that the scheme would be successful and believed it reflected the government's effort to help the debtors.

More than 60% of respondents said they had owed debts to illegal lenders.

They wanted the government to resolve the illegal money lending problem by drafting a law that protects debtors and controls the lenders.

They said the government should seek cooperation from financial institutions to relax their lending rules to make it more convenient for more people to gain access to legal financial sources.

The efforts to help low-income earners should also be implemented in a sustainable way and not be affected by political change, the poll's respondents said.

Many of them suggested the government set up a new financial institution to help low-income earners . They also suggested unlicensed creditors needed to be registered.

Another poll by Assumption University shows most people in debt to illegal lenders wanted to transfer their debts to the government's debt relief programme.

But most of the debtors interviewed in the poll did not seem to be aware of details and conditions of the programme such as the maximum soft loan to be offered for each debtor and details of debtors' registrations.

It also emerged that the government's plan to tackle loan shark problems did not seem to worry illegal creditors.

Most (92%) did not think they would be affected by the government's policy at all and more than half of the lenders interviewed said they would not lower the excessive interest rates they are charging their customers for quick cash just because the the government had promised to give out soft loans.

Speaking in his weekly broadcast address, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he was confident the government's efforts to curb illegal money lending would prove a success.

In a related development, six "violent" debt collectors have been arrested in Surat Thani. Police said the six worked for two different loan shark groups and one group was allegedly linked to a deputy police station chief in Chumphon.