Lee Chanjin: "Protecting Consumers from the Design Stage of Financial Products... Supporting Introduction of One-Sided Binding Force"

Governor Lee Meets with Civic and Consumer Groups

Lee Chanjin, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, announced on March 24 that the agency will strengthen the responsibility of financial companies from the stage of designing and manufacturing financial products and will actively pursue the introduction of the one-sided binding force system.

Yonhap News Agency

On this day, at the Financial Supervisory Service headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, Governor Lee held a meeting attended by six consumer groups and three civic organizations, stating, "We will make company-wide efforts to ensure substantial welfare improvements for financial consumers."

During the meeting, Governor Lee discussed the supervisory direction focused on the protection of financial consumers and listened to the suggestions made by civic and consumer organizations for enhancing consumer protection.

He emphasized, "I will encourage the faithful implementation of ongoing initiatives such as the roadmap for improving financial consumer protection, so that they do not result in mere institutional changes. We will also work to enhance access to information on financial products and improve financial practices so that vulnerable groups do not face difficulties in financial transactions."

The discussions at the meeting centered on two key issues: ▲consumer protection and ▲the introduction of the one-sided binding force system.

The financial authorities plan to institutionalize procedures requiring financial companies to identify and assess key risks by product type from the product design and manufacturing stage, and to specify the duty to provide explanations tailored to the characteristics and risk factors of each product. In addition, they plan to establish a consumer-centered financial system through inspections, audits, and governance aimed at consumer protection.

Furthermore, regarding the one-sided binding force system, the authorities intend to prepare a detailed plan for institutional improvement together with the Financial Services Commission, taking into account international examples and industry opinions. The one-sided binding force system requires financial companies to mandatorily accept dispute mediation proposals from financial authorities for financial disputes below a certain amount.

Governor Lee stated, "The most essential task is to strengthen the rights and interests of financial consumers so that they can receive fair and responsible treatment when using financial products and services. We will actively reflect the suggestions raised at this meeting in our future supervisory and inspection work."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.