First Vice President ASF, Cornel Coca Constantinescu: Consumer protection and financial education, basic pillar for the proper functioning of financial markets

First Vice President of FSA, Cornel Coca Constantinescu explained yesterday, August 24, in an interview for News.ro that one of the conclusions in the analysis of the causes of the financial crisis in 2008 was referred to the need to reform regulations in order strengthen consumer protection function, to ensure financial stability and growth and reduce the likelihood of future financial crises.

According to Mr. Constantinescu, the new European regulations such as Solvency II, IDD, CRD IV, MiFID II / MIFIR, UCITS IV / V, AIFMD, MAD / MAR, CRA, aimed to ensure the efficiency and transparency of European financial non-banking markets and the growth of competitiveness in the context of strengthening convergence of supervisory practices. Also a priority was within the target of increasing the level of consumer protection for financial products and services by providing greater transparency on the features of financial products, conditions of intermediation service.

He said that making available to customers the relevant information in an accessible manner in the pre-contract step is a "must" of the new rules of conduct and he appreciated that in this way will be ensured the preconditions for working honestly and professionally by informing the customers on relevant aspects such as total costs, any additional costs, assessing the suitability of the offered product, based on customer needs and risk.

In order to improve the financial education and the degree for financial inclusion, FSA was launched in 2015 a project of financial education in schools, in cooperation with the inspectorates from Bucharest, Iasi and Cluj. Within FSA, 22 lecturers have claimed 330 hours of training for nearly 2,500 students from 17 schools and colleges. Also, it has been developed informational materials such as: capital market investors guide, participant guide the private pension system, RCA Guide.

Mr. Cornel Coca Constantinescu showed that a constant preoccupation of FSA was also that of improving online access for consumers to information of interest, referring to the new application through which participants in the funds of private pension pillar II can receive information on private pension fund to which they were allocated. Also, in the context of protecting consumers, enroll both the mystery shopping activity carried out by FSA, in order to verify the practices of the sale of certain products, and the setting up of SAL-FIN as alternative for resolution of dispute between consumers and regulated entities, said more The First Vice President of FSA.

The source: News.ro.