The purpose of this paper is to examine the approaches to consumer protection in UK financial services before and after the global financial crisis.
This paper reviews the literature on behavioural economics and psychology, and uses it as the basis for a critique of the UK's approach to the supervision of financial services firms and the protection of their consumers.
Non‐interventionist approaches to consumer protection, which are based on the traditional theories of the law and economics movement, have failed. As a result, there is now a shift in thinking towards more interventionist approaches.
By understanding the likely impact of the regulatory reforms the academic research community can assist the regulator to understand the best way to ensure desirable outcomes for users (consumers) of financial services.
The moves to reform UK financial regulation after the crisis have only recently got under way and a lot of the reforms have not been widely debated or written on.
