OREANDA-NEWS. On October 04, 2007 the Federal Antimonopoly Service held a joint meeting of its Expert Council on Enforcement of the Advertising legislation, and the Banking Section of the Expert Council of Protection of Competition on the Financial Services Market, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

At their joint meeting, the Expert Councils discussed enforcement of the advertising legislation of the Russian Federation with regard to advertisements of financial services, particularly, credit services.

At the meeting the experts noted that most violations related to advertising of credit services are caused by ambiguous interpretation of Article 28 of the Federal Law "On Advertising" by financial organizations and controlling bodies. At the same time, one of the principal objectives of the advertising legislation is to protect consumer rights for obtaining reliable and bona fide information on advertised products and to exclude possibility to mislead consumers due to absence of certain substantive information in advertisements.

Therefore, the experts indicated that if an advertisement of credit services mentions a condition affecting its cost, then the advertisement should also contain all other elements of the credit cost (interest on credit, charges for opening account, monthly fixed charges for account management, charges for getting the credit amount in cash, and other payments related to granting of a credit and its repayment); conditions of insurance service charges, if credit is granted due to the need of entering into an insurance agreement; as well as information about other borrower's expenses related to the credit agreement.

The experts also pointed out that it is not mandatory to specify in advertisements borrower's expenses incurred due to improper execution of the terms and conditions of the credit agreement.