Moreover, given the pace at which financial innovation develops, investors are often faced with products with too short a history for the reliable prediction of returns. Customer protection promotes confidence in the enforceability of contracts, an essential ingredient for financial intermediation (see also Visco, 2010).
Last year, an ad-hoc directorate was created within the Banking and financial supervision department of the Bank of Italy, with the objective of dealing specifically with consumer protection and anti-money laundering. The Italian model is based on both collective ex-post protection and individual ex-ante and ex-post protection.