The OFSO’s tenth anniversary celebration comes at a time when the global financial crisis highlighted the significant risks that weak financial consumer protection poses to stability of the world’s financial system. The consumer as depositor, policyholder, saver and borrower is the central actor in the financial marketplace. Worldwide, some 150 million new consumers join the financial market each year.
Yet, ironically, the consumer’s voice is often the weakest and, very often, is not heard. For this reason, the international community has increased its focus on how to better protect financial consumers. The G20 has adopted nine High-level Principles for Financial Consumer Protection.