World Consumer Rights Day: Consumer groups demand financial service transparency

The EU has pledged to restore consumers’ faith in financial services, by instigating new rules and regulations within financial services.

The move came on World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD), which took place yesterday, and hopes to raise awareness about consumer rights worldwide.

Consumers International (CI) has sent a set of international recommendations for strengthening consumer protection, to global bodies including the World Bank and EU Commissioners.

Consumers International Director General, Joost Martens, said: “There are as many bank accounts in the world as there are adults, and 150 million new consumers join the market for financial services every year. Yet consumers around the world – in both rich and poor countries – are continuing to get a raw deal from banks and other financial service providers.”

By improving the provision of advice and sale of financial services, consumers will be able to obtain better control over their finances through debt management firms.


“They provide a clear and comprehensive set of demands for significantly improving financial protection for consumers everywhere,” Mr Martens added.


The recommendations emphasise the need for improved consumer protection through more transparency within the financial services sector. Consumers believe financial service providers should take more responsibility for ensuring consumers receive clear, sufficient, reliable, comparable and timely information about financial service products.

According to the World Bank, ‘the financial crisis dramatically illustrated that weak consumer protection poses a significant risk to the wider economy’.

The recommendations, backed by the European Commission, reflect the need for better investment information as they believe misleading information could be the reason behind many poor investment decisions.

The strive to enhance consumer protection and improve the competence of financial firms hopes to reduce the risk exposed to indebted consumers. World Consumer Rights Day is certainly a positive day which highlights the need for better financial management in such an unstable financial environment.

Categories; Current UK Economy,