This study provides the European Commission with a comprehensive inventory of the types of interest rate restrictions that exist in the EU Member States (Part 1) and gives an assessment of the impact of these on both credit markets and people (Part 2). 

• Part 1 offers an inventory of interest rate restrictions in the EU Member States and details the mechanisms and levels at which interest rate ceilings are set in those countries with such a regulatory structure in place. 
• Part 2 discusses legal IRR as interventions in the market and its effects on competition and on social and economic welfare. 

Both parts relate to each other through their common definition of Interest Rate Restrictions, (referred to as IRR throughout this study), and the purpose of IRR which is to ensure that consumer credit markets function well and that they promote the social welfare of people by means of appropriate and adequately priced credit products. 

The report indicates that there is considerable variation in the attitude of EU Member States towards the regulation of consumer credit prices. In addition, even where there is a desire to regulate prices, Member States vary considerably in the extent to which they seek to achieve this and the methods that they adopt: 

• In some Member States strict interest rate caps are defended because credit at a high price may increase consumer insolvency and reflects the mal functioning of markets especially for small amounts of credit. 
• In others, the absence of such regulations is justified primarily on the basis that caps would reduce access to credit, especially for people with moderate means. 
• The report does not provide a one-dimensional answer to these questions. 
• The concept of usury is one uniform underlying theme. The patterns of existing IRR are all derived from this historical principle. Interest derived from credit has been morally rejected and even criminalised where it amounts to the exploitation of personal weakness but has got different legal forms according to the differences in the development of consumer credit markets. 
• Public control of credit and the use of credit by consumers, as well as the general attitude to consumer credit, remain diverse and do not lend themselves to simple assumptions and solutions. 

The report therefore provides information as to the regulatory choices, the role of legal harmonisation in EU consumer credit law and information as to the factors which may favour one or the other solution. 

In addition to written material in the form of case law, legislation and legal literature, economic research and statistical data, both parts of the report rely on responses to three questionnaires containing open and closed questions received from a legal expert in each of the 27 Member States, as well as responses from 20 individual providers, from 34 provider associations, from 47 consumer organisations, from 44 public authorities in all Member States and from 12 other institutions.