OREANDA-NEWS. February 10, 2014. The Head of FAS Department for Control over Financial Market, Olga Sergeeva, addressed a session on “State Regulation of the Market of Bank Assurance in 2014: the Position of the Authorities and the Reaction of Business” at the 5th National Banking Forum - “Banks and Insurers – 2014”.

Olga Sergeeva pointed out that in the past several years the number of antimonopoly cases investigated by the antimonopoly bodies on the market of financial services had decreased. In particular, the number of cases investigated by the antimonopoly upon signs of violating Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” (competition-restricting agreements) by financial organizations, including insurance and credit organizations, went down by more than twofold in the past year.

The Head of FAS Department for Control over Financial Market drew attention to the most frequent grounds for complaints of physical persons about actions of insurance and credit organizations as part of the borrowers’ insurance programs. Such complaints include, in particular, bank refusals to grant loans without concluding an individual insurance agreement or joining collective insurance agreements, imposing a particular insurance organization to insure the borrowers’ risks and refusals to accept policies issued by other insurers, etc.

Ms. Sergeeva analyzed in detail the provisions of the Federal Law “On Consumer Credits (Loans)” coming into force on 01.07.2014, which credit organizations must take into account offering additional fee-based services, particularly, insurance services, for physical persons when granting them credits (loans).

According to Olga Sergeeva, the Law is aimed, in particular, to support fair competition of credit organizations on the market of consumer crediting, as well as protecting borrowers’ rights for obtaining complete and accurate information about consumer qualities and characteristics of the relevant credit products.