Sale of financial products may be licensed, says ESRI

Financial products could be made subject to licence if tougher inspections, bigger punishments and the publicising of violations fail to protect consumers, said ESRI research officer Pete Lunn.

Mr Lunn will tell attendees at this morning’s ESRI Conference on Economic Renewal: Financial Stability After the Crisis that parallel efforts to educate the consumer and to get vendors of financial products to put customers’ interests before their own profits have been unsuccessful to date. He says the regulatory environment needs to get tougher.

Mr Lunn said: “Tougher regulation is happening internationally. In the US, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering licensing financial products as a last-ditch attempt to protect the consumer.