Takefuji and competitors like Aiful and Acom charged them interest rates as high as 29.2% on short-term loans until the maximum rate was lowered to 20% earlier this year, among other limits imposed over the past four years.
Entrants to the consumer-finance business are soon expected to gain access to valuable data when Terranet, a new industry-run credit bureau, is set up next month (assuming blocking efforts by Takefuji, the industry leader, which claims that it might be illegal to disclose some data, fail).