The European Banking Authority (EBA) published on 28 March, for the first time, a new set of indicators, which aim at identifying detriment to consumers arising from the misconduct of financial institutions offering retail banking products in the EU. The indicators show consumers’ experience with financial services and will complement other sources of information that the EBA already uses to decide on its consumer protection priorities.
These indicators cover the banking products in the EBA’s consumer protection scope, and include mortgage credit, consumer credit, deposits, payment accounts and payment services. The indicators are meant to measure the retail risks encountered by consumers, i.e., the potential detriment suffered in the context of the business relationship between consumers and their product/service providers.
The indicators provide information that will help the EBA and national competent authorities to prioritise their regulatory and supervisory work in the area of consumer protection but may be of interest to other, external stakeholders as well.
A methodological note complements this publication to help interpret the results. It also outlines important caveats that need to be taken into account when analysing the data. Over time, as more data becomes available, and its quality continues to improve, the indicators will show emerging trends, and will feed into the EBA’s other work in the area of consumer protection.
Background
On 1 January 2020, the revision of the EBA Regulation ((EU) No 1093/2010) extended the mandate of the EBA in relation to consumer protection. Article 9(1) of the amended EBA Regulation requires the EBA to perform a number of additional tasks, including “developing retail risk indicators for the timely identification of potential causes of consumer harm.”
Source: EBA
