Findomestic — Carta Aura Carta Aura

Documented and closed events. They stay on file: an operator’s past is data, not a verdict.

1. Dec 22, 2020 Regulatory action Moderate ✓ resolved

   Italian competition authority: €300,000 fine for failing to state how long it would take to suspend instalments during Covid

   By decision no. 28511 of 22 December 2020 (case PS11798, Bulletin no. 2 of 11 January 2021), Italy's competition and market authority fined Findomestic Banca €300,000 over an information omission on its own website: the page explaining how to suspend instalments on loans and leases under article 56(2)(c) of the Cura Italia emergency decree (decree-law 18 of 17 March 2020) stated the suspension was free of charge, but nowhere said how long the bank would take to reply — neither an estimated nor a maximum time. The downloadable request form did not state it either. Who it applied to, precisely: the suspension at issue was the one for loans and leases to small and medium-sized businesses, and the parties protected by the decision are «micro-enterprises» (fewer than 10 employees and under €2 million turnover), which the Italian Consumer Code treats as consumers for protection against unfair commercial practices. It was not the suspension of instalments on a card or a consumer loan. The figure that makes the omission concrete came from Findomestic itself: average processing time declared at two or three days, yet among the examples the bank put on the record are a request from late March granted on 14 May 2020, one from 31 March accepted on 15 May, one from 21 April approved on 15 May — «and other similar situations with response times exceeding 30 days». Anyone asking for a suspension in order not to miss an instalment could not know whether the answer would take three days or six weeks, and so could not weigh up alternatives. The bank's defence was that no rule required it to publish maximum processing times. The authority replied that the omission breaches article 22 of the Consumer Code regardless, because it is material: and it set the fine on the operator's size (2019 revenues of about €1,275 million) and on the «weakness of those targeted by the practice, namely micro-enterprises under difficulty and pressure connected to the health emergency». One notable element on the record is the Bank of Italy's opinion: as far as its own remit goes, the same conduct «does not amount to breaches» of the banking transparency rules. Two authorities, two yardsticks: what clears the supervisor's transparency check can still be an unfair practice towards the customer. The conduct ran from March 2020 to late September 2020, when Findomestic amended the site to add that the outcome would be communicated by email «within a maximum of 10 days from receipt of the complete documentation». The decision prohibits repeating the practice and orders payment within thirty days; it could be appealed to the Lazio regional administrative court within sixty days and we have no record of the outcome of any appeal.

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verified on Sep 29, 2026

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