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