There are already a total of 3,100 legal moneylending agencies in the country and the government feels that is enough.

Hence, there will not be any more licence to set up money-lending businesses.

According to Bukit Aman Commercial Crimes Department director Ramli Yusuff, the move was an effort to make it easier to monitor the activities of legal moneylenders and to track any discrepancies in their business, such as using violence when collecting debt.

"There is no point having so many legal moneylending agencies if we don't have the manpower to monitor them. In Kuala Lumpur alone there are more than 500 of them," he told a press conference in his Kuala Lumpur office last night.

Big social problem

According to Bernama , Ramli said a special task force comprising personnel from the Internal Security Ministry as well as the police commercial crime and crime investigation departments had also been set up for the purpose as well to deal with illegal moneylending businesses.

He said the task force, set up on Dec 28 last year, was currently updating records on legal moneylenders to make it easier to monitor their activities.

The task force was also clamping down on loan sharks, a process which was made easier through the mobile prepaid registration, he said.

Illegal moneylenders or Ah Long have created a huge social problem in the country. They are known to use rough-hand tactics against debtors causing many to flee or even worse, commit suicide.