Summary

According to the Advertising Act, “advertising means information which is made public in any generally perceived form for a charge or without charge for the purpose of increasing the provision of services or the sale of goods, promoting an event or directing the conduct of a person in public interests” (clause 2 (1) 3). The requirements for advertising of financial services (section 29) have been highlighted in the chapter of the Advertising Act which specifies the restrictions on advertising of goods and services.

Today, advertising of financial services is the type of advertising with the largest volume, and most of these ads are aimed at consumers. The awareness of the latter on financial issues, however, is sometimes modest and they need support for making well-weighed loan decisions.

The requirements, however, established for advertisements involving financial services have, in recent years, been in a constant state of change, and there is no end in sight to these changes. This article gives an overview of the regulation of consumer credit advertising in the near term, both retrospectively and prospectively, and highlights the bottlenecks that need solving, and the possible directions for solving these.