**Future country-based reviews might look at additional initiatives.** Particularly in low-income countries, it would be useful to look at measures that increase the depth of services for under-served households. This might include, for example, the approach of giving all consumers the right to a minimum-service bank account. Analysis should, however, be made of the likely impact (and costs and benefits) of such provisions. It also might be helpful to establish some recommendations regarding selfregulatory organizations and their role in consumer protection and financial education. Consideration should also be given to ways of making non-government organizations effective participants in measures to strengthen consumer protection and financial literacy—and ensure that they develop stable sources of funding.

**Future diagnostic reviews should include countries in other regions.** In particular, the countries of Latin America and East Asia provide valuable experience that would assist in the evolution and refinement of the Good Practices. Also useful would be reviews in low-income countries.

**Future work should also include developing tools to help regulators define priorities for choosing among the recommendations.** National governments are often well-equipped to identify weak points and define what changes should, ideally, be made to reach a better consumer environment. Since all governments are faced with limited resources, however, it would be helpful to provide a tool to assist them in selecting the most important issues requiring attention, namely those with the best potential for positive impact. The positive effect of defining standards for consumer protection would be further strengthened by providing tools for risk analysis (in what order the government should deal with known issues to minimize key risks) and for impact assessment (what the expected changes in the financial sector are and when they can be expected to materialize).

**Retrospective analysis should also be given to why the consumer protection regimes in the US and UK missed the mark.** Before the financial crisis of 2007-09, the framework for consumer protection in the US and UK was considered to be among the best worldwide. Yet it failed to prevent millions of consumers from making financial decisions that have resulted in devastating losses. Consideration should be given as to whether the institutions or regulations should have taken a different form—and whether a new financial consumer protection agency, as is proposed in the US, will be able to deal with the complexities of the issues.

**Future work should also include specialized papers in different areas of consumer protection and financial literacy.** For example, additional analysis should be made of consumer protection and financial education programs needed for remittances and alternative delivery mechanisms for payments (such as mobile banking). Further reviews should also be made of consumer protection and financial education issues as they relate to consumers using microfinance and micro-insurance services.

**Regulators might also benefit from the collection of experiences of agencies that have placed consumer protection in the same institution as that responsible for financial supervision** . For example, England, Ireland, Hungary and Malaysia have all chosen to combine consumer protection (i.e. business conduct supervision) with the financial supervisory agency. It would be helpful to look at the benefits gained compared to the expense of handling conflicts of interest and see what lessons can be gained from this experience.

**Financial literacy surveys should be further refined.** The US Jump$tart surveys have found a near perfect correlation between years of formal education and levels of financial literacy. However recent evidence suggests that even middle and high-income earners are often financially illiterate. Further research is needed to test the extent of such financial illiteracy—and whether stronger consumer protection (such as prior regulatory approval of all new financial products) is needed.

**Consideration should also be given to what support the international financial institutions could provide in emerging markets.** To date, such support has primarily taken the form of country diagnostic

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