Ministry of Housing and Local Government issues guidelines allowing licensed moneylenders to provide loans online from May 2021
21 April 2021
On 13 November 2020, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (“KPKT”) released new guidelines that allow licensed moneylenders (“credit community companies”) to apply to provide loans online (“Online Moneylending Guidelines” or “Guidelines”) from 13 May 2021.
The Online Moneylending Guidelines, which are currently only available in Bahasa Malaysia, provide, among other things, that:
- credit community companies may use any digital or electronic platform for the purposes of customer profiling;
- moneylending agreements (Schedule J or Schedule K) that are given to borrowers electronically must comply with the requirements under the Moneylenders (Control and Licensing) Regulations 2003 and the Electronic Commerce Act 2006; and
- moneylending agreements may be signed digitally and/or using the public key infrastructure method as stipulated under the Electronic Commerce Act 2006 or the Digital Signatures Act 1997.
The KPKT also stated the following:
- only existing licensees can apply to provide loans online; and
- applications can only be made after six months from the date of publication of these Guidelines (i.e. after 13 May 2021, as the Guidelines were published on 13 November 2020).