Relaxation of Broadcast Credit Ad rules Broadcast wealth warnings no longer needed in mortgage ads. 28 February 2000
New law: The Consumer Credit (Content of Quotations) and Consumer Credit (Advertisements) (Amendment) Regulations 1999
Background: For some time the Office of Fair Trading had accepted the impracticality of the small print straitjacket imposed on broadcast advertisers wanting to mention credit deals by the 1989 Consumer Credit Advertisement Regulations. Now at last, rules relaxing the regime have come into force.
What has changed: Television, radio and cinema ads for mortgages are now exempt from the full rigour of the much-maligned but still in force 1989 regulations. They do not have to carry one or both of the warning statements "Your home is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on a mortgage or other loan secured on it" and "The sterling equivalent of your liability under a foreign currency mortgage may be increased by exchange rate movements." This still leaves a lot of other statutory information to convey, most or all of which is now ignored by the consumer, but at least this change is going in the right direction! Cynical advertisers may need to fill up the freed time or space with more verbiage to ensure consumer switch-off.
In force since: 28 February 2000
