Consumer Protection as a Premise to Build Trust in the Financial Service Market

IntroductionThe consumers are an important, and in some EU countries the most important recipient of financial products and services. They are also considered unprofessional clients, as they tend to lack sufficient economic, financial and legal knowledge that would ensure equality between the client and the financial institution. Against this backdrop, consumer protection seems to be of great importance. Consumer trust in the financial service market guarantees sales and profit growth in this specific sector. Considering the above, the European Commission has been undertaking numerous actions aiming to reinforce the legal protection schemes for consumers at the single market for financial services for years (with varying degrees of success), which are subsequently adopted at a national level. The main objective is to develop an appropriate legal framework for the financial service market as well as supervisory and precautionary standards accompanied by a supervision system for their implementation. Apart from that, many other components of the customer protection system may be listed. The most important customer protection scheme elements are:* guarantee schemes protecting customers of insolvent financial institutions,* actions aiming to eliminate the information asymmetry, such as committing financial institutions to more information obligations towards their customers,* ban on using unlawful contractual provisions, i.e. so called abusive clauses, by the professional party to the transaction,* non-judicial institutions settling disputes between the customers and financial institutions,* personal data protection.This article has a review character. Its aim is to systematize the issues related to the current scope of the individual client's protection, on the European Union and the Polish financial services market, and at the same time indicate accompanying - to discussed issues - fundamental dilemmas. In the article there were confronted the records of applicable legal regulations in the field of consumer protection, arising from EU directives and Polish laws in this area. Using synthesis, deriving from the analysis of a number of legal acts, elements of available knowledge about the consumer protection on financial services market, were combined into a cohesive whole, recognizing their interrelations. It also provides the author's own thoughts on the topic, resulting from the collected material.Writing the article there was used the inductive approach. Collecting information about the real customer protection of bank and the scope of the work, aimed at its further increase, there was made an appropriate generalizations re- garding the discussed issue. By deduction, it was adopted a fundamental principle of banks' cooperation with non-professional customers, which is the need to protect their rights, which rightness was considered as unqualified, developing on it further, more detailed inference, based on the logic principles, about the rules of creating customer's confidence to the financial services market.1. Guarantee institutions and their role in defending the interest of customers of insolvent financial institutionsIssues related to interest protection of clients of insolvent credit institutions are governed within the EU by the Directive on deposit-guarantee schemes1 of 1994, substantially amended during the economic crisis by Directive no. 2009/14/EC2. Changes imposed by the ongoing XXI century crisis, strongly affecting the banking sector and undermining the depositors' confidence, included a mandatory increase in the guarantee limit from 20,000 EUR to 50,000 EUR, with a recommendation of its further increase to 100,000 EUR (at the sole discretion of each Member State). The option of a 10% depositor's own contribution has also been repealed. Finally, the repayment period for guarantee sums has been shortened to 20 business days as of the day the bank is declared insolvent or a judicial authority suspends the depositors' ability to make claims against it. …