[허정수칼럼] 금융 마지막 사다리, 걷어차지 말자

The column reveals a critical paradox in consumer financial protection: strict interest rate caps (20% annually), while well-intentioned, actually exclude the most vulnerable borrowers from legitimate lending channels, driving them toward illegal lending at rates of hundreds to thousands of percent. Five years of missing official data on illegal financing obscures the true scope of the problem, preventing policymakers from understanding where the most at-risk populations are being pushed. Effective financial inclusion requires balancing consumer protection with equitable access—not eliminating the last legitimate rung for those at the bottom of the credit spectrum.