Improvement plan of the act on the protection of financial consumer related to local governments: focusing on the comparison of the act on the protection of financial consumer and the framework act on consumer
Authors:   The Legal Studies Institute of Chosun University, MUN JUNWOO 
Published: May 2023

A summary of improvement plans for the act on the protection of financial consumer related to local governments is as follows.
1. Article 1(purpose) of the act on the protection of financial consumer does not contain any content related to the ‘responsibility of local governments’. Article 1 of the act on the protection of financial consumer is “this act stipulates matters to be observed regarding the business of financial product sellers and financial product advisors, and national and local governments, in order to promote the rights and interests of financial consumers and establish a sound market order in the financial product sales business and financial product advisory business. It is aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of financial consumer protection and contributing to the development of the national economy by prescribing matters related to financial consumer policies and financial dispute settlement procedures for the protection of financial consumer rights and interests of local governments.” 2. Article 9 of the act on the protection of financial consumer (responsibilities of the state) omits the responsibilities of local governments. Subparagraph 2 of article 9 of the act on the protection of financial consumer is defined as “the state and local governments shall fulfill the following responsibilities(1. establish and implement necessary policies to promote the rights and interests of financial consumers in order to realize the basic rights of financial consumers pursuant to article 7), 2. enactment, revision, and abolition of laws, ordinances, and rules related to the protection of financial consumers, 3. maintenance and improvement of operation of necessary administrative organizations, and 4. support and fostering of sound and independent organizational activities of financial consumers).” It would be nice to amend it.
3. It would be nice to revise the ‘of the state’ in article 10, subparagraph 1 of the act on the protection of financial consumer to ‘of the state and local governments’.
4. It would be good to amend the ‘financial services commission’ in article 29(financial consumer protection) to article 30(financial education) paragraph 4 of the act on the protection of financial consumer to ‘financial services commission and local governments’.
5. There are no provisions related to the protection of personal information in the act on the protection of financial consumer, such as article 15, paragraph 1 of the framework act on consumers. Therefore, according to the act on the protection of financial consumer, “the state and local governments shall take necessary measures to prevent financial consumers from suffering unreasonable damage due to loss, theft, leakage, alteration, or damage of financial consumers’ personal information in transactions between financial consumers and financial product distributors, etc.” It would be good to create a new regulation similar to “.
6. There is no such content as article 18, paragraph 1 of the framework act on consumer in the act on the protection of financial consumer. It would be good to add a new provision to the act on the protection of financial consumer, such as “financial product distributors, etc. must actively cooperate with the national and local governments' policies to promote financial consumer rights and interests”. 7. There is no such thing as ‘protection of the vulnerable’ in the act on the protection of financial consumer. It would be good if new contents such as the protection of the vulnerable class were added to the act on the protection of financial consumer.