Country Studies Provide Powerful Lessons in Financial Consumer Protection
Until the financial crisis of 2007, the global economy was adding an estimated 150 million new consumers of financial services each year. Rates of increase have since slowed but the growth continues. Most new consumers are in developing countries w...
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2010/07/12817898/country-studies-provide-powerful-lessons-financial-consumer-protection http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10171 |
| Summary: | Until the financial crisis of 2007, the
global economy was adding an estimated 150 million new
consumers of financial services each year. Rates of increase
have since slowed but the growth continues. Most new
consumers are in developing countries where consumer
protection and financial literacy are still in their
infancy. This is particularly true in countries that have
moved from central planning to market economies where
protecting consumers is necessary to ensure stable and
competitive financial markets and give new consumers
confidence in the formal financial systems. The global
financial crisis has highlighted the importance of consumer
protection and financial literacy for the stability of the
financial sector. In the US, the rapid growth of complex
residential mortgage products, combined with securitized
instruments which were sold to poorly informed parties, has
caused much turmoil. Financial institutions worldwide have
been obliged to write off trillions of dollars of assets. In
Europe and Central Asia (ECA) too, damage to the financial
sector was serious. |
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