금융투자업자에 대한 금융소비자보상기금 제도의 도입에 관한 연구 = Overview of the Compensation Scheme for Financial Consumers in Regard of Financial Investment Firms: Whether and How to Adopt It

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The ``Compensation Scheme for Financial Consumers`` (the ``Scheme``) functions as a fund that indemnifies a certain portion of damages of financial consumers, which is caused by unlawful acts of a financial investment firm but cannot be compensated fully by the firm due to its insolvency. This article outlines the Scheme and introduces its critical features, and analyses whether and how to adopt it to Korea. For this purpose, main function of the Scheme-which is to promote confidence in capital markets through protecting financial consumers-and other benefits expected from it are analyzed. In analysing the features of the Scheme, this article stresses the difference between the Scheme and deposit insurance. Comparing the Scheme to deposit insurance, which is the already-established consumer protection mechanism, would materialize the key elements to consider in adopting the Scheme. First of all, unlike deposit insurance, the Scheme protects financial consumers who are ``non-adjusting creditors.`` This fact shows that the Scheme does not target the prevention of the systemic risk, or bank-run in particular, but the sole purpose of consumer protection. The Scheme, therefore, cannot be simply justified just like deposit insurance which is to prevent systemic risks; there should be a special need for protection of financial consumers. In light of this, the article presents some of the factors that distorts rational choices of a financial consumer, namely, consumer biases discussed by behavioral economists. From the perspectives of civil law or corporate law, on the other hand, the Scheme has the stronger justification due to that difference; transferring the default risk of ``non-adjusting creditor`` can be easily justified, compared to creditors who had opportunities for adjustment of their claims, namely depositors. There are other features that need explanation to justify the Scheme. The substantial difference of moral hazard problem between deposit insurance and the Scheme should be reviewed. The problem of the later is involved with not only the possibility of insolvency but also the incentive for violating regulations or unlawful acts; this problem, however, could be eased if it is well reflected in designing the Scheme. In addition, whether there is enough possibility of insolvency of financial investment firms deserves attention; it would not be rational to add another regulation to financial industry if there would hardly be any use of it. Then this article presents some factors to consider in drafting it. For this purpose the similar compensation schemes of other countries are presented; in particular, the scheme of the UK-namely, Financial Services Compensation Scheme-is introduced in detail for it is the most complete form of the Scheme among the actually adopted ones. Then some of the matters-such as the range of the protected financial consumers, the maximum compensation limits, the range of the protected damages of financial consumers, and whether to integrate the Scheme with deposit insurance-are presented. Those analyses stem from the fact that although the financial consumers have limited rationality and need special protection, the measures for consumer protection not only induce moral hazard problem but also become a burden to financial investment firms. Thorough analysis should be given, therefore, to the issues which arise in actually drafting the Scheme, and so as to merits and demerits of the Scheme, even if the Scheme is sometimes referred as one of the necessary protection measures for financial consumers through the global financial crisis.