Consumer credit, a form of finance designed to satisfy demand for durable goods above and beyond the prospective purchaser’s income by spreading payment over a period of time, is rapidly increasing in volume in Italy, albeit less than in other industrial countries, owing to its mass nature. The financial operation involved has brought to light a number of important and controversial issues, with major cultural, political, social and market repercussions. It is this aspect that has been brought to the attention of civil society, particularly via the main media channels.
The structure of interest and the spreading of risk regulated by the provisions of the law remain in the background, virtually hidden. This is partly due to the inherently technical nature of the subject and largely to the deep-seated conviction that the law has only the static role of crystallising decisions and policies formed elsewhere. And yet the importance of the legal system for the organisation of society as well as for economic growth itself – a fact that is more and more widely recognised – is evident in this area too, in which transparency of the contract and rules guaranteeing fair conditions, introduced during the changeover from public-law to market regulation of banking, encourage the development of consumer credit.
The paper describes the rules governing this financial operation, starting with a comparative analysis of legislation in the leading European countries in order to examine, from an interdisciplinary point of view, the main issues underlying the relative legal framework (and the delays). The objective is to offer a single, systematic interpretation of the rules affecting consumer credit and so pinpoint the main legal methods of spreading contract risk and safeguarding consumers used in ‘living law’.
