REVITALIZING THE ROLE OF CONSUMERS AND OJK IN OVERCOMING ILLEGAL ONLINE LOAN
The Covid-19 pandemic has at least two impacts on society; firstly, the increasing use of information technology applications in all aspects of human life. Secondly, restrictions on business activities caused many companies to be closed and finally increased the numbers of unemployment by 281% while the number of formal workers decreased by around 39.5%. Consequently, consumers’ purchasing power is reduced even though the basic needs of life still have to be paid. This condition brings online lending companies to utilize information technology to market their products using the community’s financial difficulties. This opportunity is also exploited by illegal lending and borrowing companies, which made the Financial Services Authority (OJK)'s hard to protect the public from becoming victims of illegal online loans. This research applies normative juridical research methods utilizing library research. Data and facts are gathered from scientific articles, journals, books and other sources obtained through internet searches. Afterwards, it is processed and analyzed to find problems, conclusions and suggestions to solve. This research discovered that there is still a lack of public literacy on their rights as independent consumers and the non-optimal performance of the OJK as the agency that holds the authority for licensing and monitoring online loans. The researcher concludes that the problem of illegal online loans can be overcome by increasing the literacy of the rights and obligations of consumers and business actors namely, fintech companies, as well as increasing coordination between stakeholders to deal with the problem of illegal online loans.
Pandemic, Consumers, Illegal Online Loans, OJK, Fintech