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ABU DHABI // The economic slump is driving an increasing number of Indian and Filipino expatriates to turn to illicit lenders, officials say.

But the practice can land them in more trouble. Such lenders charge exorbitant interest rates, demand passports as collateral and require blank, signed cheques from accounts in India or the Philippines, said K V Shamsudheen, the founder of Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust, an organisation that advises expatriates on debt.

“Demand for money from family members for emergency like medical treatments, marriages, education and sometimes even adjusting to inflation of livelihood compels them to take loans,” he said.

Others simply find it intimidating to deal with banks that ask for a salary certificate, a three-month bank statement, a passport copy with a UAE visa page, and other paperwork. And some are not eligible to apply for loans because of their meagre salaries.

Nelson Labung, a marketing officer at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Dubai, said banks require a minimum monthly salary of Dh7,000 for a customer to be eligible for a personal loan. The average monthly income of an expatriate in the UAE is about Dh14,000, or Dh6,900 for those in collective households.

“Other banks require a much higher minimum salary and approve the loan on the condition that the applicant’s salary is transferred to their bank,” he said.

The illegal lending agents are called “loan sharks” or “blades”. Their business spreads through the community through word of mouth. They can loan anywhere between Dh500 to Dh100,000, usually for a short term.

If customers cannot repay back on time, the amount owed doubles or the lender threatens to cash the cheque.

And if the cheque fails to clear, the account holder can be sent to jail. As an additional threat, they have networks of “recovery teams” – thugs to pressure and intimidate people into payment – both in the UAE and in many Asian countries, said Nasser Munder, the labour attache at the Philippine overseas labour office in the capital.

“I’m surprised that many nurses, who earn good salaries at a government hospital here, have been turning to their own colleagues for a personal loan,” Mr Munder said.

“Sometimes it will be the roommate of a labourer who is a money lender,” Mr Shamsudheen said. “But they will not say that. They will say, ‘Shall I try to help you? I have approached a person, he will give you money.’ Meanwhile, it will be that same person who is the money lender.”

It is against the law for individuals to engage in the money-lending business in the UAE, according to Mr Munder.

And although sharia law does not allow lenders to charge interest, there are those who take advantage of those who badly need the money, said Karunagappally Shamsudeen, a lawyer at Al Kabban Advocates and Legal Consultants in Dubai.

“But the victims cannot do anything,” he said. “They have signed blank cheques and blank documents to people who have offered them loans.”

People whose passports are held can turn to police for help in recovering them, he said, as that is also illegal.

In February last year, a Filipina working at a government hospital in the capital told a community gathering that police had arrested a colleague at work two weeks earlier after she defaulted on a loan offered by a compatriot. The nurse failed to pay back Dh15,000, so the amount doubled to Dh30,000. That led the lender to cash a cheque from the borrower, which bounced.

“A nurse was picked up from the clinic because she was not able to pay this person on time,” she said.

The alleged loan shark in that case was also a woman from the Philippines.

“A nurse who is from my place, Lanao del Sur [southern Philippines], had to take an emergency leave because her father passed away,” Mr Munder said. “She left her car as collateral to a colleague who was involved in the money-lending business.”

In the Philippines, money lending is known as five-six, and any amount of a principal loan is charged 20 per cent interest. The same principles are being applied here, Mr Munder said.

“It would be difficult to file a case against [loan sharks],” he said. “If other victims would come together and testify as witnesses against the suspect, we may overcome this problem.”

But it is difficult for staff at the embassy to help without knowing who they are up against, an embassy official said.

“We need to know who the loan sharks are,” he said. “We have been told that this loan shark requires a blank cheque and if you are unable to pay, they double the amount. But who are they?”


http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll ... 29659/1133

Loan sharks? Hmmmmm they're called banks in this palce aren't they?

Chocoholic wrote:Loan sharks? Hmmmmm they're called banks in this palce aren't they?

Yes true that. The banks here are worse than the thugs and the collection agencies the enforcers. A whole gangster operation under legal guise.

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