Financial Consumer Protection

A survey conducted by International Financial Corporation (IFC) jointly with BPNG on the ‘Financial Consumer Protection Legal and Regulatory Framework and Industry Practices in PNG’ identified significant gaps in the current practices around disclosure requirements, fair trade practices, product suitability and consumer complaint redress mechanism in comparison to international best practices. The study recommended for a comprehensive Financial Consumer Protection Act to address the gap. Efforts to establish a comprehensive financial consumer protection framework and supervision mechanism is in progress. The proposed bill will cover all institutions offering a financial product as defined within the Act and include non-deposit taking credit institutions. The financial consumer protection framework is built on internationally accepted principles of fair treatment, disclosure and transparency, product suitability, responsible lending, data protection and consumer recourse. The bill requires FSPs to establish an accessible and affordable internal complaint redress mechanism. An external consumer dispute redress mechanism as an appeal authority is under consideration too and will be established in the near future.