Loan shark

Shylock is a colloquial metaphor for a rogue creditor or credit intermediary, which occurs outside the state- controlled financial system.

Properties

Typical of a loan shark are:

• The loan is to be particularly high, possibly immoral interest rates offered (hence the allusion to the sharks reputed greed).
• The credit is granted customers with poor credit ratings. The probability of default in loan repayment is high from the beginning.
• The credit is designed without collateral as unsecured loans.
• The lender works without permission of the Bank Supervisory Authority ( BaFin in Germany ) and thus illegal.
• In the recovery of due payments or repayments are threatened with illegal activities to the violence (hence the allusion to the sharks reputed violence ).

Illegal lending is often related to organized crime.