Foreigners run 3 lending companies with interest rates up to nearly 1,400%/year

On June 17, the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department announced that it is investigating a case of "Lending at high interest rates in civil transactions" led by a foreigner.

Accordingly, the subject Aigars Plivčs (Latvian nationality, 38 years old; residing at the apartment of Precia Building, No. 21 Nguyen Thi Dinh, An Phu Ward, Thu Duc City) was discovered by the authorities in April, while operating two websites tamo.vn and findo.vn.

Authorities serve the prosecution decision on Aigars Plivčs. Photo: Provided by CATP

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department of Investigation, the above two websites were established by Sun Finance Group (headquartered in Latvia), through three legal entities: Sofi Solutions Company, Digital Credit and Fincap VN to operate consumer lending in Vietnam.

These are electronic consumer finance lending websites, pre-programmed; customers only need to log in to the website, fill in their full name, phone number, email address, monthly income, monthly expenses, ID card/CCCD number, account number, ID photo, front photo of themselves, and the system will automatically process the loan without having to directly contact any employee of the lender.

Customers will receive the loan transferred to their bank account, at this time the system automatically creates 3 electronic contracts including the Pawn Loan Contract and the Asset Pledge Contract with Digital Credit Company/Fincap Company, the consulting service contract with Sofi Solutions Company. All these contracts are kept on the system, the parties do not sign anything on the contract. Each customer in the process of operating on the loan system will be guided to create an account on "tamo", "findo".

Customers can view their loan information by logging into the website tamo.vn, findo.vn or through the “tamo”, “findo” applications on their phones.

Working with the police investigation agency, Aigars Plivčs confessed that he was an employee of Sun Finance Group, headquartered in Latvia, the group that manages and operates all lending activities through the above two pages. Although not the legal representative, Aigars Plivčs is the CEO of all activities such as lending, debt collection, cost management, and human resources through department heads and division heads of the three companies. Aigars Plivčs has a 2% stake in Sofi Solutions Company.

Aigars Plivčs admitted that all three companies operated together, participating in lending through two websites; in which Sofi Solutions Company acted as a consulting unit, Digital Credit/Fincap VN provided consumer loans even though they were not licensed.

The subject also admitted that when customers borrowed through the above two websites, the company did not have any consulting or pawn activities; admitted that he knew clearly that the interest rates of the loans were higher than 100% per year but still agreed to continue organizing the lending activities.

Aigars Plivčs hired a legal representative to establish 3 companies to carry out usury in civil transactions.

The lending interest rate of these companies is at least 401.5%/year; the highest is 1,379.7%/year, 20-68 times higher than the highest interest rate allowed under the provisions of the Civil Code.

The total amount of illegal profits that the District 10 Police Investigation Agency has proven through working with 29 borrowers is more than 780 million VND.