SEC revokes Super Cash Lending's license

MANILA, Philippines — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday said they revoked the license of lending firm Super Cash Lending Corp. for shaming and threatening borrowers struggling to repay their debts.

The move came after corporate regulators found that Super Cash — through its online lending platforms Super Cash, Cash Porter, and Loan Bee — threatened to shame delinquent borrowers on social media, as well as with estafa and theft charges. 

Super Cash likewise threatened borrowers that they would be blacklisted with the National Bureau of Investigation, and used profane and abusive language to collect debts, the SEC said.

But the verbal attacks escalated to "threats of inflicting grave physical harm upon the person of the complainant", a practice that the SEC said was "too obnoxious to ignore."

“We respect the right of lending and financing companies to formulate and adopt certain strategies to effectively collect debts and secure their profitability. However, harassment and other abusive or predatory practices will never be acceptable and tolerated," SEC Commissioner Kelvin Lester Lee said.

The government has been cracking down on financing companies with abusive debt collection practice.

Earlier this year, the SEC revoked the CA of FCash Global Lending, Inc. for committing unfair debt collection practices. The company, which previously operated through online lending platforms Fcash, Fast Cash and Fast Cash Loan, has had one of the most number of complaints for collection harassment since 2017.

Regulators also ordered four online lending applications, namely CashAB, CashOcean, KwikPeso, and Little Cash, to cease operations "for lack of authority to operate as a lending or financing company." The online lending operators were also found to have employed abusive collection practices. — Ian Nicolas Cigaral