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On Our Right To Know Legislation To Protect Financial Consumers

Posted on:2014-07-02Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:J Y FanFull Text:PDF
GTID:2266330392462600Subject:Law
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Financial consumers’ right to know is one of the most significant rights of financialconsumers. As a result of financial institutions’ professionalization and pursuit of interests,the abstractness and risk of financial products and services as well as limited understandingand disadvantage of consumers in finance, the gap between financial institutions andconsumers pertaining to the scope, degree of and access to relevant information wouldprobably lead to information asymmetry. Financial consumers’ right to know inclines toprotect financial consumers, enabling them to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests.It means that financial consumers have the right to know the truth about the financialproducts and services when purchasing and using them. Financial consumers’ right to knowis characterized by abstractness, complexity and fundamentality. Legislative protection forfinancial consumers is attached great importance not only to financial consumers’ interests,but also to the maintenance of a healthy financial system and a steady economy. Somedeveloped western countries have advanced in the legislative field of financial consumer’sright to know protection which is conducive to the construction and development of thelegislative protecting system for our own financial consumers’ right to know. A series offinancial reforms have been undertaken in the United State after the subprime mortgagecrisis, taking the protection for financial consumers’ right to know more serious. TheBritish law <Financial Services and Markets Act> has also dedicated much portion tofinancial institutions’ obligation to describe and disclose information about financialproducts and services. However in China, many provisions regarding financial consumers’right to know protection can be found, but there are still problems: firstly, as many law asthere are, such as <Consumer Protection Act>,<Commercial Banking Act><SecuritiesAct>, the terms financial consumer and financial consumers’ right to know have not yetbeen explicitly stipulated in any of them. Secondly, there is a lack of unity with respect toprinciples of financial consumers’ right to know protection. Last but not least, the existinglaws have lost sight of financial institutions’ obligation to describe information to theirconsumers while obsessed over information disclosure. For reasons given above,improvements have to be done. In the first place, financial consumer and financial consumers’ right to know should be defined in the law. In the second place, principles offinancial consumers’ right to know protection should be legislatively unified. In the lastplace, financial institutions’ obligation of information description should be paid just asmuch attention as information disclosure.
Keywords/Search Tags:Financial Consumers, Financial Consumers’ Right to KnowProtecting Principles, Information Disclosure, Information Description
PDF Full Text Request
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