The Chinese central bank has said it plans to officially launch new measures to protect the rights and interests of financial consumers before 2021.
Xu Wenjian (余文建), head of PBOC’s consumer protection department said at a routine press conference held on 27 August that the authority was currently in the process of accelerating the drafting of implementation measures for protecting the rights and interests of financial consumers in China.
According to Xu PBOC will “endeavour” to release the new measures before the end of the year.
In December 2019 PBOC announced that it would issue an amended draft of the “Implementation Measures for the Protections of the Rights and Interests of Financial Consumers” (金融消费者权益保护实施办法) for the solicitation of opinions from the public.
The original Measures themselves were first drafted by Chinese authorities in 2016.
The amended version of the Measures stipulates that financial institutions in China “cannot use technological methods or their position of advantage to coerce or covertly coerce financial consumers to accept financial products or services, or exclude or restrict financial consumers from accepting financial products or services provided by institutions in the same sector.”
The draft further stipulates that financial institutions are not permitted to “add restrictive conditions during the process of the provision of financial products and services to require that financial consumers purchase or use products or services that are not clearly stipulated in agreements.”
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