Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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172. To ask the Minister for Finance if help and advice can be provided to a person (details supplied); the protection they have from the vulture fund which now owns their loan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22091/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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There are a number of legal protections available to a person when their loan has been sold on to a third party. The Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Act 2015 was enacted on 8 July 2015. It was introduced to fill a consumer protection gap that existed where loans were sold by the original lender to an unregulated firm. The 2015 Act introduced a regulatory regime for a new type of entity called a 'credit servicing firm'. Credit Servicing Firms are now subject to the provisions of Irish financial services law that apply to 'regulated financial service providers'.

This ensures that relevant borrowers, whose loans are sold to third parties, maintain the same regulatory protections they had prior to the sale, including under the various statutory codes (such as the Consumer Protection Code, Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears, Code of Conduct for Business Lending to Small and Medium Enterprises and the Minimum Competency Code) issued by the Central Bank of Ireland.

Additionally, following a review in 2015, the Central Bank Code of Conduct for Business Lending to Small and Medium Sized Enterprises has been strengthened resulting in the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013 (Section 48) (Lending to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises) Regulations 2015 which comes into operation on 1 July 2016. The aim of the Code and these Regulations is to facilitate access to credit, promote fairness and transparency, and provide a framework for dealing with financially difficult cases.

Purchasers of loan books must either be regulated by the Central Bank themselves or else the loans must be serviced by a credit servicing firm who is regulated by the Central Bank. Furthermore, it is important to highlight that the transfer of a loan from one entity to another does not change the terms of the contract or the borrower's rights and obligations under the original contract.

The Credit Review Office has information available on its website for SMEs who have had their loans sold on, which may be of interest to the Deputy's constituent. This information is available via the following link: .