report of training on financial consumer protection for ... · deepak saxena, senior programme...
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Report of Training on Financial Consumer Protection for Uzbek Delegates by CUTS
CUTS International Amarjeet Singh
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Background
Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) organised a four-day training on Financial
Consumer Protection for nine delegates from Uzbekistan, representing Central Bank
of Uzbekistan, Federation of Consumer Protection Societies of the Republic of
Uzbekistan, National Association of Microfinance Institutions and German
International Cooperation (GIZ), Uzbekistan at Jaipur during May 13-16, 2013.
German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is
supporting a project for promotion of Microfinance in Central Asia, in three
countries namely; Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. For details please visit:
http://www.giz.de/themen/en/31901.htm )
Under the Regional Programme in Support of Microfinance in Central Asia
supported by GIZ a 9 member delegation from Uzbekistan visited India to have
exposure to the Indian financial system and mechanisms to protect the interest of
consumers in the financial sector. For this, GIZ Uzbekistan requested CUTS to
organise and facilitate the training for the group. (List of participating delegation is
attached as Annexure 1)
Objective of the Training
To make the visiting team familiar with consumer protection
mechanismsorganisations and a developed regulatory framework in India and to
help increase their knowledge about existing regulation/grievance redressal
mechanism in dealing with complaints related to financial services. (The agenda of the
training programme is attached as Annexure 2).
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Proceedings
First Day (May 13, 2013)
After welcoming the delegates, George Cheriyan (Director CUTS), introduced the
programme schedule.
Madaminov Muzaffarbek from GIZ, National Coordinator for the Project sharing the
purpose of the visit to India said that one of the component of their project is
consumer protection and India being a leader in the field of consumer protection and
CUTS’ rich experience in the field motivated them to visit and learn from the Indian
system of consumer protection, especially in the financial sector.
Further Cheriyan spoke in detail about CUTS & its various activities mainly in field
of financial consumer protection. He shared that from a small consumer issue of
fewer matchsticks in match box, the organisation has now evolved as an
international advocacy organisation working in more than 35 countries on wide
range of consumer issues from common complaint handling to competition,
regulation, international trade and governance issues.
Deepak Saxena, Senior Programme Coordinator CUTS made a power point
presentation on the ‘Overview of Indian Consumer Protection Act and Consumer
Protection Mechanism in the Country’. He covered provisions of the Consumer
Protection Act, 1986 and other available avenues for consumer protection and
redressal.
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Visit to CUTS
After lunch, delegates visited CUTS offices to understand functioning of consumer
organisations and interactions with its team. CUTS has its headquarters at Jaipur
and three programme centres. Representatives from three centres provided a brief
overview of their centres and its programmes. Delegates interacted with CUTS team.
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Day Two (May 14, 2013)
After recap of day one by participants the proceedings started with technical session.
Amarjeet Singh, (Project Coordinator, CUTS) made a presentation on ‘Overview of
Indian Financial Sector and Measures for Consumer Protection’. In his presentation
he spoke about the Indian financial sector, structure of financial market in India,
financial institutions, regulatory agencies and key legislations and measures taken to
protect financial consumers in India.
It was followed by presentation by Cheriyan on ‘Financial inclusion, other emerging
concerns and efforts to protect consumers of financial services’. He spoke on the
importance and scenario of financial inclusion, key challenges, and initiatives taken
in India for inclusions as well as at international level to protect interest of
consumers in financial sector. He presented various statistical data on the same of
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India, Uzbekistan, Europe & Central Asia, and Lower Middle Income. He focused on
key challenges including accessibility in rural India, sales incentive schemes and
mis-selling in banks, high cost on small amount of remittance and financial literacy.
He mentioned schemes, programmes and initiatives taken by Indian government for
protection of consumers of financial services, such as Unique Identification Number,
payments through Micro-ATM in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Direct Benefit Transfer, etc. In the end,, he
mentioned G20 civil summit, scheduled to be held in Moscow, while highlighting
the efforts at the international level.
After each presentation, participants raised several queries which were well
attended by the presenter.
Visit to Regional Office of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Jaipur Office
The participants along with CUTS team visited RBI. After a warm welcome and brief
introduction, Sathyan David, Regional Director made opening remarks and a brief
presentation on its objectives, functions of RBI and other regulatory structure in
India. It was followed up by next presentation on ‘Structure of the Indian Financial
Sector’ by Smita Sharma, Assistant Adviser, Department of Economics & Policy
Research. She explained about money market (primary, secondary, foreign exchange
market) and its components. She also discussed the structure of Indian debt market
and the regulatory coordination of Financial Stability Development Council.
Third presentation was made by J K Bagdi, Deputy General Manager, Rural
Planning & Credit Department on ‘Financial Inclusion Initiatives’, where he
presented the key findings of the World Bank study on Financial Inclusion – 2012,
informed about initiatives taken by the RBI in the field of financial literacy and
financial inclusion and also shared the plans of banks for financial inclusion through
outreach programmes and its impact on banks.
The last presentation was focused on ‘Banking Ombudsman Scheme in India’
presented by N P Topno, Banking Ombudsman. While briefing about financial
consumer protection, regulatory & consumer complaint redressal system, he
mentioned banking ombudsman scheme provides second layer of grievance
redressal. Further, he informed about institutes covered and not covered; issues
covered and not covered, etc. He briefed about the mechanism of grievance
redressal; how they decide; when and how to appeal under the scheme.
The visit and presentations lasted for more than two hours and participants raised
many queries which were answered by the RBI. In the end, participants requested
RBI to provide details of their three-year plan and documents related to Banking
Ombudsman Scheme which was accepted and shared by the RBI.
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Day 3: May 15, 3013
The third day of the training started with the recap of the previous day. After, that
Amol Kulkarni (Policy Analyst, CUTS) gave a presentation on Existing Financial
Sector Regulatory Architecture, Regulatory Governance and the task of Financial
Law including Consumer Protection.
In his presentation, he explained inancial regulatory architecture, financial
regulatory governance, tasks of financial law, consumer protection prevention and
cure, micro-prudential regulation: risk management on the basis of intensity of
promise, development and redistribution literacy and inclusion and systemic risk
management: seeing the wood and the not the trees.
The session lasted for more than three hours and participants made several queries
which were well attended by the presenter.
Visit to NABARD
After that the team visited National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
(NABARD) office where they got a warm welcome from Jiji Mammen, Chief General
Manager (CGM), NABARD Regional Office, Rajasthan. He welcomed participants
by presenting them a flower. After that a small introduction round was held in
which participants as well as staff from the Bank introduced themselves to be
familiar with each other.
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After the introduction CGM briefed the participants about the working of NABARD,
its mission, goals and objectives, functions and deliverables of NABARD etc.
Archana Singh, In-charge of NABCONS (NABARD Consultancy services) made a
detailed power point presentation on the formation of SHGs, money lending
process, interest rate etc. Speaking about the mission of NABARD she said that the
mission is to promote sustainable and equitable agriculture and rural prosperity
through effective credit support, related services, institution development and other
innovative initiatives. In her presentation she also discussed financial literacy.
After the presentation, there was question answer round, where participants asked
queries which were well addressed by the team of NABARD.
Day- 4 (May 16, 2013)
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Rajesh Kumar Meena, Assistant Manager, Investor Awareness Division, Securities &
Exchange Board of India
(SEBI) shed light on the
role and initiatives of
SEBI to protect interest of
consumers and investors
in India. He stated that
SEBI is regulator for the
stock market in India
having mandate to
protect interest of
investors and also
development of market.
Field Visit to Meet SHGs
After the presentation, participants visited one of the villages near Jaipur to study
about the micro-finance and interacted with the members of Self Help Groups
(SHGs) facilitated by an NGO, named CECOEDECON.
P M Paul, Director, CECODECON made a presentation about the organisation and
its activities. The team directly interacted with organisations’ team and the present
women member of SHGs. The discussion was mainly focused to know the working
of SHGs, impact in their life/earning due to SHG microfinance etc.
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Closing Session
The closing session was mainly to have feedback from participants about the
programme and suggestions for improvement. All participants spoke very high
about the programme and said it was more than their expectations. They said that
their decision to select India and CUTS for the exposure visit proved right and they
learned a lot and will implement the learnings after reaching back to Uzbekistan.
Thus, the training concluded with positive note to explore further collaboration on
the issue between CUTS and the respective organisation of the participants.
For more detail about the programme, please visit our website at: http://www.cuts-international.org/CART/Training_on_Financial_Protection_for_a_Group_from_Uzbekistan.htm
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Annexure- 1 (Programme Schedule)
Training on Financial Consumer Protection for a Group from Uzbekistan
Organized by CUTS-CART
Under the Regional Programme in Support of Microfinance in Central Asia supported by
GIZ
Programme Schedule
SN Time Topic Facilitator
Sunday, May 12, 2013: Arrival
Day-1 (May 13, 2013)
1 9.30- 10.30 Introduction, expectations of participants and reviewing the programme schedule
About CUTS & its various activities
George Cheriyan, CUTS
2 10.30-11.00 Tea break
3 11.00- 13.00 Overview of Indian Consumer Protection Act and Consumer protection mechanism in the country
Deepak Saxena, CUTS
4 13.00-14.00 Lunch Break
5 14.00-17.00 Visit to CUTS Offices to understand functioning of consumer organisations and interactions
CUTS Team
Day-2 (May 14, 2013)
6 9.30- 10.00 Recap of day 1
7 10.00-11.00 Overview of Indian financial sector and Measures for Consumer Protection
Amarjeet Singh, CUTS
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11.00-11.30 Tea Break
9 11.30- 13.00 Financial inclusion, emerging issues and protection of consumers of financial services
George Cheriyan, CUTS
10 13.00- 14.00 Lunch Break
11 14.00- 17.00 Visit to the office of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the office of Banking Ombudsman
CUTS Team
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Day-3 (May 15, 2013)
12 09.30 -10.00 Recap of day II
13 10.00- 13.00 Existing Financial sector Regulatory Architecture, regulatory governance and the task of financial law including consumer protection Tea Break from 11-11.30
Amol Kulkarni, CUTS
14 13.00-14.00 Lunch break
15 14.00- 16.30 Visit to NABRAD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development)
CUTS Team
16 16.30- 18.00 Free time
17 18.00- 22.00 Visit to Chokhi Dhani1 (Ethnic village resort) and Dinner
CUTS Team
Day-4 (May 16, 2013)
18 9.30-10.00 Recap of day III
19 10.00- 10.30 Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and its initiatives for education and protection of investors
Rajesh Kumar Meena, Assistant Manager, Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
20 10.30-14.00 Field visit to meet and interact with members Self-help groups (SHGs) (Microfinance institutions/groups) to know about their functioning
CUTS Team
21 14.00-15.00 Lunch break
22 15.00-16.00 Questions/clarification based on the filed visit & Summing up/concluding session
CUTS Team
Friday, May 17, 2013, departure
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Annexure- 2 (List of Participants)
№ Name Position
1 AKHMEDOV
KOMILJAN
Head of Division, Central Bank Republic of
Uzbekistan
2 NIGMANOV SURAT Head of Department, Federation of consumer
protection societies of the Republic of Uzbekistan
3 MADAMINOV
MUZAFFARBEK
National coordinator, German international
cooperation (GIZ)
4 SAFAROV
LAZIZBEK
Specialist of monitoring department, Federation of
consumer protection societies of the Republic of
Uzbekistan
5 PAYZIEV SULTON Chief specialist, Federation of consumer protection
societies of the Republic of Uzbekistan
6 MUKHAMEDOV
NODIR
Chief specialist, Federation of consumer protection
societies of the Republic of Uzbekistan
7 NAZAROV
SHUKHRAT
Executive director, National Association of
Microfinance Institutions
8 DJURAEV
KHURSHID
Senior advisor,German international cooperation
(GIZ)
9 ELENA GORELOVA Translator , GIZ
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Annexure- 3 (Press Coverage of Event)
Source: http://www.dainiklokdasha.com/Pdf.aspx?file=04d0e3e3-ce7d-4cfc-a27f-2fff6460c0ef.pdf&type=pdf