Credit scoring rules take center stage in talks on new consumer credit act

In brief

• The Ministry of Justice held talks on creditworthiness rules for the new consumer credit act implementing EU directive CCD2.
• Participants included the Financial Supervision Commission, consumer groups, banks, non-bank lenders and credit bureaus.
• The government outline proposes a "Borrowing money costs money" warning in credit ads and extends rules to BNPL services.
• The draft would ban lending after a negative creditworthiness assessment; the final text is not yet published.

Consumer credit rules in the works

The Ministry of Justice has continued work on legislation that will implement the second EU consumer credit directive, known as CCD2 (Ocena zdolności kredytowej tematem rozmów o nowej ustawie o kredycie konsumenckim – Ministerstwo Sprawiedliwości). The latest meeting focused on how lenders should check whether a customer can repay a loan. The ministry said the aim was to gather comments from the market and consumer organisations that will feed into the final text.

Who took part

The discussion brought together officials from the ministry, the Financial Supervision Commission, consumer organisations, banks, non-bank lenders, the Credit Information Bureau and business information offices.

Balancing protection and access

The ministry frames creditworthiness checks as a safeguard against borrowing beyond one's means, while warning that rules must stay proportionate so that legal credit remains available. Officials have signalled that the goal is to raise consumer protection without making it unnecessarily hard for lenders to lend responsibly.

What the draft is expected to include

The government's published outline proposes that every consumer credit advertisement carry the warning "Uwaga! Pożyczanie pieniędzy kosztuje" ("Attention! Borrowing money costs money") (Kredyty konsumenckie na nowych zasadach. Rząd publikuje założenia do ustawy – Rzeczpospolita) („Uwaga! Pożyczanie pieniędzy kosztuje”. Tak mają wyglądać nowe reklamy kredytów – Bankier.pl). The draft also extends protection to buy-now-pay-later services and bans granting a loan after a negative creditworthiness assessment (Nowy projekt ustawy o kredycie konsumenckim. Zmiany w reklamach i ocenie zdolności – Prawo.pl). Unsolicited credit offers would be restricted as well (Kredyty konsumenckie na nowych zasadach. BNPL i zakaz niezamówionych ofert – GazetaPrawna.pl). The so-called free-credit sanction is to be modified, according to the outline.

Next steps

The ministry has not yet published a final text. The draft remains at the consultation stage, with the outline presented on 3 November.