The consumer group Which? has been on the rampage again, lobbying the European Commission to introduce a consumer panel to stand up to financial services firms and their regulators.
The idea is that the panel would be similar to the Financial Services Consumer Panel in the UK and would be made up of consumer groups that would deal with the financial services industry in each country.
Our view
The basic idea is a good one because in many EU countries there is very little regulation or protection for consumers. However, the fact that there is little regulation will mean EU countries are reluctant to impose these new consumer groups.
Much of the EU is far behind the UK in terms of regulation. We think they need to catch up, learn from the mistakes made in the UK and then think about consumer panels.