Formulation of Effective Regulations to Protect Financial Consumers from the Sale of High-risk Financial Products

Abstract

The DLF, Lime fund and Optimus fund scandals highlight the unethical management and sales behavior of financial companies as well as consumers’ lowered trust in them; this has raised awareness regarding high-risk financial products and the need for financial consumer protection in Korea. Financial authorities have devised various measures to prevent the recurrence of scandals. Examining the current state of high-risk financial product sales and the newly introduced regulatory measures, this study investigates whether there exists any lack in the financial consumer protection and regulatory measures. If financial companies play a responsible role in protecting financial consumers while manufacturing and selling risky and complex financial products and providing innovative investment opportunities and profit structures that cannot be found in the existing financial products, financial consumers’ trust may be restored in them. High-risk financial products should not be the means of exploiting financial consumers who lack financial literacy, but rather to enhance the dynamics of the capital market through efficient capital intermediation and risk diversification.