Legislative proposal for the adoption of CCD2 in Belgium published

In October 2023, the European legislator adopted a new Consumer Credits Directive (CCD2). This directive will replace the previous CCD dating from 2008 and will apply from 20 November 2026. Even though Member States had to transpose this directive by 20 November 2025, the Belgian legislator has only just now published its legislative proposal. 

In this blogpost, we will have a look at some noteworthy provisions. 

‘Buy now, pay later’ in scope 

The most notable change brought by CCD2 is that ‘Buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) products are fully in scope. The original CCD did not explicitly address this matter yet – on account of it dating from 2008 when those services were not common yet. This left the door open for Member States to have their own interpretations of when such a payment accommodation constitutes a consumer credit. 

Burden of proof on the creditor 

It is up to the creditor to demonstrate its compliance with the principles on consumer credit. While this does not follow directly from CCD2, it is an implementation of CJEU case law (C 449/13) that states that it would render the consumer protection intended by the CCD ineffective if it were up to the consumer to prove that the creditor was not compliant. As a result, the burden of proof of compliance should rest on the creditor. The Belgian legislator will now include that principle into Belgian law. 

CCD2 transposition 

The bulk of the articles concern the actual implementation of CCD2. Most provisions are a faithful adaptation of CCD2 and should not pose any particular surprises. 

The main difficulty encountered here is that the English, French and Dutch language versions of CCD2 seem to differ on a few points due to linguistic differences. This poses a risk for a bilingual country like Belgium, as it obviously cannot impose different obligations in both language versions. Here, the legislator had to make a few executive decisions on which language version to align with. 

Consultation of data sources 

Credit agreements are generally logged into a central database: the Individual Credit Register. Creditors will have to check this register to assess the consumer’s creditworthiness. It is specified that other ‘relevant internal or external sources’ may be used, which opens the door to wider data sources. Social media, however, is prohibited from being used as a data source. 

In case of credit refusal, personal data processed to assess creditworthiness must be removed three years after the decision to not grant the credit. 

Expansion of right to be forgotten 

Belgian law did already have a limited ‘right to be forgotten’ in the field of certain insurances. It allows people that have successfully completed a cancer treatment five years ago to not have to report this cancer diagnosis when applying for an insurance. This right to be forgotten will be extended to insurances related to consumer credits. This is a logical extension, as it already applied to insurances related to mortgage credits. 

Mandatory age verification 

One notable deviation from CCD2 is that there will be a total prohibition from offering consumer credits to minors. Creditors will be required to conduct age verification, using identity cards, passports or other similar documents, or eIDAS-compliant electronic means of identification – such as the Itsme or MyGov applications. 

Consumer research has shown that over 20% of BNPL-users are in the 16-24 age range. Given the financial vulnerability of minors, this has in practice already resulted in several cases of minors defaulting on their payment obligations – leading to more costs racking up. At the Belgian political level, there has for some time been a clear intent to prohibit such consumer credit agreements for minors. It was already expected that this would become part of the Belgian transposition of CCD2. 

For any questions on how the Belgian implementatio of CCD2 will affect your business, please contact niels.vandezande@timelex.eu.