Parliamentarians to Improve Monitoring of Pawnshops

By E.OYUNDARI

During the regular parliamentary session meeting of February 5, parliamentarians revised a bill on the operations of pawnshops and non-bank lending services, which was initiated and submitted by MP G.Uyanga, and a decision was reached to conduct the first parliamentary discussion of the finished bill.

Pawnshops offer short-term cash loans in exchange for personal property as equivalent collateral and are often frequented by individuals without the resources to pursue loans or credit lines within the banking system.

According to statistics provided by the General Authority of State Registration, a total of 8,233 entities have been registered to run pawn services as of November 10, 2015, with 6,800 registered for operations in Ulaanbaatar and the remaining 1,433 registered for operations in the provinces. However, due to the lack of a monitoring system for pawnshops, there is no record of how many entities are running permanent operations.

In compliance third quarter figures in 2015 provided by the Ulaanbaatar Mayor's Office,some 560 entities are running pawnshops in Ulaanbaatar. Approval to run pawnshop operations come from district Industry and Services Departments.

In recent years, complaints about pawnshop services have increased. Based on the complaints and petitions delivered to the National Commission of Human Rights and the Authority for Fair Competition and Consumer Protection, pawnshops provide very low appraisals for collateral without providing any...