With increased consumer harm related with financial products and with increased conflicts between financial companies and consumers, there is a consensus to solve these problems through an institutional strategy to protect financial consumers. Since there is an informational asymmetry between financial consumers and financial companies, financial consumers should have disadvantages in financial market. This invoke that it is necessary to establish a fair protection program for financially disadvantageous consumers. The current protection for financial consumers through the regulations on the individual financial business categories confronts serious problems caused by incomplete or inconsistent regulations. Furthermore, these problems are expected to be intensified in the future due to increased derivative commodities and sales channels. However, the current regulation system of the individual financial business category is ineffective to protect financial consumers due to incomplete marketing regulations. There was an attempt to enact the Financial Consumer Protection Law, which will provide general guidelines for financial consumer protection. The law brought before the National Assembly contains followings;
First, the law contains a functional regulation system to reflect the idea, “the same financial products - the same regulation”. The similar kinds of financial products across various financial business categories should be regulated in the same ways; duty to explain, principle of suitability, principle of adequacy, prohibition on taking advantage of its superior status, prohibition on undue recommendation, advertisements regulation, etc.
Second, the law introduces penalties to restitute any unjust enrichment gained by unfair financial marketings. By introducing this, financial companies should pursue profit within the restrictive measure of the law.
Third, the law assures establishment of a semi-independent "financial consumer protection organization" within the Financial Supervisory Service to help financial consumers. There is room for further discussion whether the organization should be completely separated from the Financial Supervisory Service or not.
Furthermore, the law emphasizes Liability for Damages, Resolution of Disputes, etc to protect financial consumers.
Other than these, there are on-going discussions regarding class action, punitive damages, and burden of proof within the boundary of the fundamental ideas of the law, protection of financial consumers.