The Research On Legal Definition Of Financial Consumers

With the development of our national economy and society and the continuousdeepening of the financial reform, the financial services have been showinginnovative forms and an unprecedented development at full speed. Financial serviceshave been bonding so closely together with people’s life that financial consumptionbecomes a very important consumption activity. Although financial consumption is socommonly seen in social life and the concept of “financial consumer” has been widelyused, it is still not a legal concept and its connotation is not clear as well. In ourcountry," financial consumers" use context mainly concentrated in the banking,securities, funds and other financial business, it is usually used as a definition of theparty involved in financial activities, referring to participants who purchase financialproducts or receive financial services from financial institutions. But quite on thecontrary, the financial department of law has not formally put forward the concept. Asfar as the present law of our country,“The Consumer Protection Law” drafted in1993provides a powerful legal guarantee for general consumers in the market, but distinctfrom the protection of traditional consumption,“The Consumer Protection Law” playsa small role in financial consumption, so once the financial consumers’ rights andinterests have been infringed, it is hard for them to seek relief.As the financial market develops, the financial liberalization has loosenedrestrictions on competition and integration has broadened operating space for banks.However, because of differences in economic environments and monitoring modesamong nations, especially the gap between our country and the more developedcountries on legislative ideas, abilities and modes, the concept of financial consumershas not been clearly defined in our country. In order to grasp the developmentopportunities in the trend of integration and liberalization, it is important for ourcountry to learn from advanced legislation modes, find out the meaning of financialconsumers and ascertain its positioning in legal system. Thus, it has become an urgentissue for our country to gradually introduce the concept of financial consumers. The author believes that the introduction of this concept will both theoretically andpractically boost the development of our legal system. This article begins with atypical case, followed by analyzing the necessity of defining financial consumers, andthen this article will illustrate the research status of financial consumers throughcomparison of the theoretical research and practical experience of different countries.The article then attempts to prove that financial consumers is a subordinate concept ofconsumers, and based on that, tries to give an adequate demonstration of theconnotation and extension of financial consumers. Lastly this article will offer someprospects on promulgation and provide suggestions to promote our legal system thatcan coordinate the conflicts bought by established concept of financial consumer.Apart from introduction and conclusion, this article is divided into four parts:The first part is to put forward the questions: why do we study the definition offinancial consumers. Through the research of the violations of financial consumerevents which appeared more and more in recent years, the part makes in-depthanalysis to financial consumer from the protection for the rights and interests offinancial consumer and from stability of financial markets.The second part is about the existing legislation and theoretical expression of“financial consumer”. It mainly introduces the status of the definition of “financialconsumer” from both domestic and international theory and practice circle. This partincludes two aspects: one is the concept of “financial consumer” in the extraterritoriallegislation, which mainly introduces the current situation and basic classificationabout “financial consumer” in the western highly developed financial countries; theother is the understanding about “financial consumer” in our country----the currentlegislation of our country does not establish the concept, but theory and practice circlehave been undertaking a lot of discussion.The third part is the transformation of the identity and the definition fromconsumer to financial consumer, which is the main part of the article. The partintroduces the differences between “consumer” and “financial consumer” from theangle of the definition and the development from consumer to financial consumer. Toprove the attributes of the financial consumers with consumers’ basic attributes, wecould conclude that “financial consumer” belongs to the category of “consumer”.Then the part further defines the connotation and extension of “financial consumer” through the relationship between the bank customers, consumers, investors, the bankinsured and “financial consumer” separately.The fourth part is to put forward the challenges which “financial consumer” is toconsumer protection law and financial law. The part is mainly the prospects for thefollow-up legislation, and the difficulties which consumer protection law and financiallaw face respectively, and how to solve these problems.