Gyeonggi-do Strengthens Crackdown on Online Illegal Private Loans

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province will significantly strengthen its monitoring system for illegal private loan advertisements online starting this year, in collaboration with the 'Illegal Private Loan Citizen Monitoring Group.'

Gyeonggi Province announced on the 9th that, as illegal private loan advertising methods have recently expanded from flyers and phone calls to online platforms such as internet cafes, blogs, and SNS, it expects significant harm to vulnerable groups such as teenagers, the elderly, and housewives, and has decided to reinforce its monitoring system accordingly.

Earlier, in October last year, the province launched the 'Illegal Private Loan Citizen Monitoring Group' with local residents familiar with regional conditions to prevent damage to financially vulnerable groups caused by illegal private loans and to eradicate illegal advertisements that cause inconvenience.

From October to December last year, the province, together with the monitoring group, collected 362,741 illegal private loan-related mobile advertisements (such as business card-type flyers) across 24 cities and counties in the province. Additionally, they collected 1,930 phone numbers and suspended the use of 1,798 cases confirmed as unregistered loan businesses.

Going forward, the monitoring group will not only conduct offline monitoring activities but also monitor illegal private loan advertisements online on platforms such as SNS and blogs. They will focus particularly on whether essential information is displayed for loan advertisements by registered lenders and loan solicitors, and whether there is impersonation of government or low-income financial products in illegal private loan inducement advertisements.

If the citizen monitoring group collects materials such as screenshots or URLs of related online advertisements and reports them, the province will conduct a thorough investigation of illegal activities through the Special Judicial Police Unit. The collected online advertisements will be referred to the Korea Communications Standards Commission for measures such as advertisement deletion, service termination, and access blocking.

Jo Jang-seok, Director of the Small Business Division of the province, said, "Under the 7th Gyeonggi Province administration, we are taking the lead in eradicating illegal private loans that harm the livelihood economy," and added, "We plan to establish a meticulous monitoring network together with residents so that illegal private loan advertisements cannot gain a foothold anywhere, both offline and online."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.