WASHINGTON, D.C. –
Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan praised an interagency effort to
improve financial disclosures to consumers following the release of a research
report today. His statement follows:
I applaud the interagency effort
to improve financial disclosures for consumers. The research released today highlights the importance of focusing
on the consumer in developing financial notices and communications of any kind.
Effective consumer-oriented
financial disclosures are one key to consumer protection. Disclosures that are too complicated and too
long are often ignored by people who need to know the details and risks of
the products they are considering.
Effective disclosures give people the information they need to make
well-informed decisions, and well-informed consumers are the heart of a vibrant free market
system.
I look forward to the next phase
of this effort that will seek even wider input from consumers throughout the
country as regulators and the industry work toward improving disclosures. These efforts will result in better informed and better protected
consumers, clearer accountability concerning consumer treatment and consumer
behavior, reduced regulatory burden, and a stronger financial services marketplace.
Sponsored by the Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Credit Union
Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Securities
and Exchange Commission; the report presents findings from more than a
year of consumer-centered research involving focus groups and in-depth
interviews throughout the United States to gauge consumer reactions to a
variety of privacy notice formats and language. The report presents one model disclosure statement for further
testing.
The report concludes that consumers need a context for understanding
information in financial privacy notices.
The research shows that while there is a general awareness of
information sharing practices, most consumers do not understand them.
The second phase, which
also includes the Office of Thrift Supervision, will expand that research to
include a much wider group of consumers to measure the effectiveness of sample
notices.
For more about the
interagency research on financial privacy disclosures, visit http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/privacyinitiatives/ftcfinalreport060228.pdf (PDF 14MB).
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The Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency was created by Congress to charter national banks,
to oversee a nationwide system of banking institutions, and to assure that
national banks are safe and sound, competitive and profitable, and capable of
serving in the best possible manner the banking needs of their customers.