In the autumn, the Finnish Consumer Agency issued several statements relevant to savings and investment products. What these statements have in common is bringing a genuine consumer perspective to bear on the supervision of financial services and taking into account behavioural economics.

In its statement to the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority, the Finnish Consumer Agency focused attention for example on various integrated and linked financial services.

The Finnish Consumer Agency stressed the need to create uniform models that make it easier to compare financial services and products. These models must take actual consumer behaviour into consideration.

Shared models of this type used by all service providers would not only make it easier for the consumer to select and compare financial products but also allow consumers to get an overall idea. In addition to providing information, the customer must also be allowed adequate time to read and understand this information before making any investment decisions.

Getting a grasp of the whole

The Finnish Consumer Agency welcomes the fact that the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority is striving to combine the practices to be complied with when offering various financial services in a single document. As financial products become more complex, the consumer often is increasingly dependent on the marketing practices observed when offering the service. In addition, the matter may be of major significance to a consumer’s finances.

When offering financial services, the entire sales process should thus be conceived as a whole, including all promotion measures, and not one stage of the process may be misleading. In the offer of financial services, there has been too much focus on individual financial products, while the whole has received less attention.

KUV/9331/48/2011