Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Consumer definition

What does Consumer mean? A consumer is, in practice, an individual who acquires goods, services or digital content for personal use, not for the purposes of a trade, business, craft or profession. The precise meaning is statutory and context‑specific. England & Wales and Scotland: The Consumer Rights Act 2015, s2(3), defines a consumer as an individual acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside their trade, business, craft or profession (capturing mixed‑purpose purchases where the business purpose is not predominant). The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 instead asks whether a party “deals as consumer”, a distinct test relevant to exclusion and limitation clauses. The Sale of...

Commercial lending and the UK consumer regimes: when consumer credit, unfair terms and residential mortgage rules apply to loans, guarantees and security

Published by a LexisNexis Banking & Finance expert

Practice notes

Commercial lending often funds sizeable corporates. Yet a significant number of deals also involve an individual—for example, someone may give a guarantee and/or secure a business loan against their home—a partnership, or a small or medium-sized enterprise. Accordingly, lenders must recognise when Consumer-focused legislation might apply, as it could be pertinent to such arrangements.

Consumer credit law

The primary statutes in this area that lenders should note are:

the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA 1974)
the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA 2000)
the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001, SI 2001/544 (RAO)

The Consumer Credit Act 1974 and related legislation

CCA 1974 aims to protect consumers by establishing a comprehensive framework governing consumer credit, consumer hire and other categories of consumer credit agreements. It introduced a new regime under which organisations providing consumer credit were required to be licensed by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). From 1 April 2014, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) assumed...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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