OREANDA-NEWS. November 10, 2014. Hosted by the People’s Bank of China, the 2nd Annual General Meeting of the International Financial Consumer Protection Organization (FinCoNet) as well as the International Seminar on Financial Consumer Protection were held in Shanghai, China. About 60 representatives from the 17 FinCoNet members, China’s financial regulatory authorities, domestic financial institutions, and Fudan University attended the meeting. PBC Deputy Governor addressed the meeting.

Deputy Governor Li Dongrong pointed out that the Chinese Government has attached high importance to the protection of legitimate rights and interests of financial consumers. Financial consumer protection agencies have been established in the PBC and other financial regulatory authorities, to provide all-round and multi-level protection to financial consumers. He said, currently, China’s financial consumer rights protection mechanism is being continuously improved, which helps safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of financial consumers, improve the quality of financial services, optimize the financial eco-system, and promote financial stability and social harmony.

Deputy Governor Li Dongrong highlighted the issues and challenges facing countries in their effort to protect financial consumer rights, such as how to identify potential systemic risks in products, services, business model, and development strategies of financial institutions which might harm the rights and interests of financial consumers, how to strike a balance between encouraging financial innovation and protecting financial consumers, and how to strengthen cross-border supervisory cooperation against the backdrop of financial globalization, and etc. Policy-makers should attach high importance to these issues and strive to solve them collaboratively.

Participants exchanged experiences and lessons learnt from their practices in building a financial consumer protection mechanism and financial supervision, and had in-depth discussions on the trend of financial consumer protection, institutional arrangements, supervisory toolkits, and rule-making.

The FinCoNet, as the first international organization of supervisory authorities which have responsibilities for financial consumer protection, was formally established in November 2013, in Lisbon, Portugal. The overall aim of the FinCoNet is to develop international rules on financial consumer protection, and strengthen exchange of experiences and supervisory cooperation in financial consumer protection among member countries. The PBC is the founding member of the FinCoNet and a member of its Governing Council.