A court in Barcelona has declared that the terms forced on users who subscribed to the Wizink Bank ‘revolving’ card are null and void because the remuneration regime is usurious, by applying an interest rate higher than the average market rate.
“The interest is disproportionate if the difference between the average market rate and the consumer tax exceeds 6 points,” says Carlos Sánchez, the defendant’s defence lawyer, who explains that the exceptional element of the ruling is that “this requirement is not only applicable at the beginning of the contract, but throughout the life of the contractual relationship”.
The ruling condemns the entity to repay the client the amounts that have been paid during the life of the credit card for all items that exceed the capital provided.
“In addition, you must pay interest at the legal rate of money from the date of filing the claim and until payment, with the increase legally provided from the date of resolution. We are talking about between 8,000 and 10,000 euro”, adds the lawyer.
At the beginning of the contract, an interest rate (TAE) of 23.9% was agreed between the entity and the client. The average revolving market rate published by the Bank of Spain at that time was 19.15%, so it was not usurious. But from 2008 the financial entity increased the interest rate without prior notice, until it reached 27.5%.
For Sánchez, this ruling of the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 1 of Cornellá de Llobregat “is one of the first to be favourable to the consumer after the ruling of the Supreme Court on February 15, in which, a priori, it was optimistic for the bank and it seemed to complicate things a lot for the holders of these who wanted to sue”, he affirms.
In his opinion, “it provides greater clarity when declaring the invalidity of these cards and can put an end to the application of abusive practices by these entities.”
