Opposition party aims to ban private lenders' TV ad

SEOUL, July 25 (Yonhap) -- A lawmaker of South Korea's main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea proposed a bill on Monday to ban private lenders from making advertisements on TVs amid the country's mounting household debts.

Under the bill proposed by Rep. Je Youn-kyung, private lenders will be banned from making TV advertisements. Currently, the ban is only applied at certain times of the day to prevent teenagers and children from watching them.

"Although the number of advertisements rolled out by the top 10 private lenders fell 36 percent on-year in the first half, the daily number of TV ads aired still stands at 757 cases," Je said. "The advertisements are mostly aired past 10 o'clock at night."

Je also proposed that advertisements of loan programs from savings banks and credit card firms should also be banned.

Existing rules ban private lenders from making advertisements from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., and 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on weekdays. The prohibition is applied from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on weekends.

colin@yna.co.kr
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