Oral Answer by Senior Minister of State for Law, Mr Edwin Tong, to Parliamentary Question on Moneylending Licences

18 FEB 2020

18 Feb 2020 Posted in Parliamentary speeches and responses

Miss Cheng Li Hui (Member of Parliament for Tampines GRC)

Question

To ask the Minister for Law (a) whether a transport start-up without a moneylender licence is allowed to offer loans to their pool of drivers at a high admin fee; (b) how can the drivers be assured that they will not be locked-in unfairly to the transport start-ups after obtaining the loans; and (c) whether there will be Government regulation on start-ups offering similar services operating within the grey area of the law.

Oral Answer

  1. Under the Moneylenders Act, all entities, including start-ups, can only carry on the business of moneylending if they are authorised to do so by licence, or if they have been granted an exemption, or are excluded moneylenders.

  2. Start-ups that run schemes or programmes that constitute moneylending are subject to moneylending regulations.

  3. We understand that the Member in this PQ may be referring to Grab’s Upfront Cash Programme, or the UCP, which offered cash advances to selected drivers and delivery partners. We understand too that Grab has discontinued granting new cash advances under the UCP.