An International Comparative Study On Financial Consumer Protection

Since the latter half of the 20^th century,the financial industry has made great progress,financial innovation constantly emerging,comprehensive management trend has been strengthened,and financial products are becoming increasingly complex.Financial consumption plays a more and more important role in social life.As the financial services are becoming more abundant and convenient,the inequality between the financial consumers and institutions are also becoming more and more serious.The subprime mortgage crisis in the United States has exposed the problem of insufficient protection of financial consumers'rights and interests,both the government and the people have award of the disregard and violation of the rights and interests of financial consumers has shaken and damaged the foundation of long-term development of the financial industry.Therefore,since 2009,the financial consumer protection has become an important aspect of international financial regulatory reform,more and more countries and regions have increased their dedicating resources to financial consumer protection and adopted a series of important measures,including strengthening financial consumer protection legislation,optimizing the regulatory framework,enhancing sales standards,promoting financial literacy and financial services dispute resolution.At present,China's online finance and other emerging financial industries are booming,at the same time,the financial involvement of the general public is deepening,deposit loss,fraudulent credit cards and other financial consumer rights damage often occurs.Complying with the trend of international supervision and the development of financial market,China's financial regulators have gradually strengthened efforts in the field of financial consumer protection.So far,under the framework of separate supervision,the financial consumer protection regulatory framework has been basically established,and taking active practice in such areas as financial literacy education and complaint handling,however,compared with the international advanced practice,the needs of the development of the industry,and the expections of the people,there is still a long way to go.Therefore,it is necessary to sort out the relevant theories of financial consumer protection,and make a comparative study and empirical research on the practice of financial consumer protection in the developed countries in the world.On this basis,discuss how to improve the construction of financial consumer protection mechanism in China,in order to build a fair and equitable market environment,safeguard the interests of the people,and promote the long-term healthy development of the financial industry.This thesis mainly includes the following seven parts:The first chapter is an introduction.This chapter starts with the trend of the reform of international financial supervision after the financial crisis in 2008 and introduces the development of financial consumers'protection at home and abroad.It explains the meaning of the chosen topic,research ideas,framework,difficulties and possible innovation ideas.What's more,it summarizes the existing research results and literatures from three aspects:the reasons of protection of financial consumers,the current situation of protection of financial consumers and the improvement of financial consumer protection.The second chapter shifts into the study and definition of the concept about financial consumer protection.It represents the analyzation of the concept and origin of consumers,tracing back the origin of protection of financial consumers'rights and interests by comparing the concept in different levels such as individuals and organizations,consumption and investment.Also,by integrating legislative practice worldwide,the paper sorts out and compare the definition of financial consumers in the United Kingdom,the United States,and Malaysia.Meanwhile,it introduces the relevant legislative practice of financial consumers in China.Thus,the notion of financial consumers and financial consumer protection is defined both in a narrow sense and a broad sense.The third chapter compares and analyzes the trend of the supervisory system of financial consumer protection in major countries such as the United States,the United Kingdom and Australia.The main practices and reform in the regulation of financial consumer protection before and after the financial crisis are systematically sorted out and compared from the aspects of legislation,setting of institution and specific functions.It comes to a conclusion that after the financial crisis in 2008 when the regulation of protection of financial consumers failed and their rights and interests were infringed,all countries will put strengthening financial consumer protection and behavior supervision as the main content of regulatory reform.The bimodal mode and the bimodal type mode are becoming the main trends and universal choices in regulatory framework reconstruction in developed countries.All financial consumer protection regulators are established in accordance with relevant laws and have a stable source of funding.These organizations are independent and has a full set of professional regulatory tools.There are differences in the scope of supervision and the establishment of internal institutions.The fourth chapter compares the main practices of financial education,regulation of sales,mediation of disputes in the United Kingdom,the United States,Australia and so on before the incident,during the incident and after the incident of protection of financial consumers.The general practice of financial education includes offering supervisory institutions and other specialized institutions with the authority of financial education in legislative level,establishing the overall strategy and framework of action,setting up evaluation system of financial education effectiveness,promoting the accumulation and sharing of financial education resources,initiating financial education from young students.In the aspect of sales regulation,some practices are implemented to strengthen the protection of consumers'rights of being informed such as improving the standard of information disclosure,prohibiting improper inducement and clarification of the obligation about delivery of written documents.In the aspect of resolving disputes,the common practices include highlighting the primary responsibility of financial institutions in dealing with complaints and regulative institutions'external supervision,establishment of a simple and effective mediation mechanism from the third-party.The fifth chapter mainly empirically analyzes the comparison of protection of worldwide financial consumers.This chapter sets up a multidimensional index about protection of financial consumers'rights and interests from three aspects:the inclusiveness and convenience of financial services,the diversity of financial services and investment channels,the construction of mechanism of protecting financial consumers'rights and interests which can be used to measure the balance of supply and demands of the protection of financial consumers.The results show that the overall level of the financial consumer protection in developed countries is much high above the developing countries.Then,the paper analyzes the causes of FCPI index changes in OECD and main developing countries group by group and explores the fundamental cause of the change of FCPI index by using the balance panel model.By doing so,it verifies the fact that the level of economic development,personal financial literacy,the degree of private credit convenience,the level of information technology,the financial supervision system as well as the degree of urbanization have a significant impact on the supply of protection of financial consumer the in the country or region.Adding to that,the deciding factors of the index about protection of financial consumers differ in developed countries and developing countries.The sixth chapter combines the empirical research results of the fifth chapter and the case analysis of the damage to the interests of consumers,systematically sorts out the current situation of protection of financial consumers in China from regulatory arrangements,popularization of financial knowledge and handling complaints.The results show that,although in recent years,the availability of financial services improved a lot in China,and the Chinese government has done a lot of useful attempt in the field of financial consumer protection,there are still plenty of deficiencies and shortages on inancial consumer protection legislation,financial consumer education and ADR mechanism.The seventh chapter puts forward four suggestions on how to improve and strengthen the protection of financial consumers in China by integrating international comparison and empirical results from analysis.First,we should continue to raise the level of social education,and bring financial knowledge into compulsory education and basic education.The second is to promote inclusive finance and enhance the balance of social and financial opportunities with the new urbanization construction.The third is to enhance the effectiveness of financial supervision and take the financial consumer protection regulation as an important aspect of behavior supervision.