under development include possible government-sponsored financial products that guarantee the safety of (retirement) savings while still providing some possible capital gains from stock market appreciation.

**Qualitative monitoring of financial literacy and consumer protection should also be conducted.** The use of “mystery shoppers” can help regulators and other policy-makers understand what information is provided to consumers as they shop for financial services and products. It will also highlight areas where regulators should intervene (or encourage the professional associations) to take actions to improve the accuracy and ease of understanding of information provided to financial consumers.

**The national financial education strategy should include a role for both the public sector and civil society.** The country studies found that the professional associations for the financial sector, and particularly the banking associations, were very committed to providing financial education and training for consumers. This should be encouraged as part of a national strategy on financial education. However in the country studies—in every country except Russia— the consumer organizations lacked sufficient institutional strength to play an important role in improving consumer protection or financial literacy. Consideration should be given to ways of strengthening consumer organizations and ensuring that they have a long-term stable funding source that will allow them to play a vital role in strengthening protection and education of financial consumers.

**For financial education, countries may wish to take a graduated approach, depending on the level of financial sector development.** As noted in Table 11, at a minimum, the authorities could conduct a radio and television campaign to make consumers aware of the risks involved in financial products. At a medium level of development, more could be done. “Mystery shoppers” could be hired to test the experience of a typical consumer of financial services and products. Training from financial institutions would also be useful. Consideration should also be given to conducting a national financial literacy survey. For countries at high levels of financial sector development, formal training could be provided through the professional associations. Web-based financial tools are helpful as are internet-based stock market simulation games. A national financial literacy survey would provide critical information for the development of a national financial education strategy.

**Table 11: Levels of Financial Education**

|**Level of Development**|**Measure**|
|---|---|
|Low|Mass media campaign to highlight risks for financial consumers|
|Medium|Use of mystery shoppers, financial training through financial institutions, national financial<br>literacy survey|
|High|Financial training through professional associations, internet stock market games, national<br>financial literacy survey, national financial education strategy|

# **Future Work**

**Global surveys of consumer protection and financial literacy would be useful.** While the Good Practices include useful policy approaches for consideration by regulators and self-regulatory organizations, it would also be helpful to conduct global surveys on consumer protection and financial literacy. In particular, regulators and others would benefit from global surveys of: (1) the legal and regulatory frameworks for financial consumer protection in different countries; and (2) the levels of financial literacy and common patterns of financial consumer behavior (financial capability) in different countries. Additional cross-country empirical data on levels of consumer protection and financial literacy would also be helpful.

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