Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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No. With respect, the Minister of State must look at the amendment that has been put forward in the context of section 3 of the original Act, and I do not have it in front of me, which specifies those that are captured under the Central Bank regulation and it has a number of exemptions, and exemption (e) refers to those who are exempt from the regulation and states: “(e) credit granted or made available without payment of interest or any other charge". That is where someone is buying milk and bread from a corner shop but saying to the owner that one will pay next week or ask for the sum to be noted in a book. That scenario is exempt.

What is not exempt is "other than where such credit is granted or made available by a person who has invited, by way of advertisement, consumers to avail of such credit”. So if the corner shop advertised that customers can get interest-free credit on shopping then they would be captured in the same way as Klarna. That is what the intention here is. The problem is that it is connected with the advertisement and it has to be the person who invites it through advertisement that is captured.

If the officials in the Department and the Central Bank are comfortable with the wording, given what we have teased out, then I am happy. However, I wish to take this opportunity to say that I think there could be an issue in terms of who advertised the products. This is common standard. Klarna is not the one that advertises. It is the shops that advertise. There is a window on the shop's website where one can avail of the Klarna credit but Klarna does not advertise the credit.