ABSTRACT
The 2008 financial crisis has brought a cataclysmic change to EU financial regulation that saw a number of new pieces of legislation being introduced. Alongside that, there has been a renewed interest in protecting consumers, especially low-income and overindebted consumers. The concept of aggressive practices was introduced by the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) on an EU level. While the provisions on aggressive commercial practices have the potential to capture issues of power imbalance, prevalent in financial services, they have remained underused. This chapter will explore how the protection against aggressive commercial practices can be applied in consumer credit both horizontally via the UCPD and through key sectoral directives, such as the Consumer Credit Directive, Mortgage Credit Directive, and Payment Accounts Directive. This chapter wishes to focus on the impact of the inequality of bargaining power between trader and consumer, as exemplified by aggressive commercial practices. As the UCPD requires minimum harmonization in relation to financial services, there is the potential to go beyond the standards prescribed by the UCPD. The aim of the chapter is to examine the current potential for protecting consumers from aggressive commercial practices in consumer credit and assess the need for reform.
