scholarly journals Diffuse interest groups and regulatory policy change: Financial consumer protection in Turkey

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehmet Kerem Coban

This article examines why and how a regulation on retail banking fees, commissions, and charges emerged in Turkey after a long period of regulatory forbearance. The article shows that when regulatory forbearance caused stasis, and the “statist”, exclusionary policymaking context limited consumer groups’ access to the policymaking process, consumer groups challenged the policy regime of the banking sector and the regulator by appealing to another state actor, the Ministry of Customs and Trade. The Ministry took advantage of an opportunity structure to pass a new consumer protection law which assigned a de facto mandate on the regulatory agency to regulate fees, commissions, and charges. The article argues that the regulatory policy change was a product of a policy regime change with the Ministry emerging as a veto player, as it redefined the institutional arrangements in the policymaking process, and imposed its preferences and its stricter policy approach. As such, the article contributes to our understanding of the conditions of how diffuse interest groups can trigger regulatory policy change, but more importantly policy regime change.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luís Daniel Martillo Jeremías ◽  
Ana Isabel Polo Peña

PurposeThe present study aims to propose and validate a model to measure certain variables that may contribute to increasing the bankarization rate (uptake of retail banking services) among developing-economy populations characterized by poor financial literacy and low income levels.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative empirical study is carried out in the retail banking sector of a country with low-bankarization rates. Using a self-administered questionnaire distributed online, structural equation modeling is applied to analyze the relationships between value co-creation, brand experience, brand equity and reputation.FindingsThe results show that brand equity is an antecedent of reputation that values co-creation, and brand experience positively influences brand equity and that values co-creation that positively influences brand experience.Social implicationsThe bankarization rate of a developing country is generally taken as an indicator of the socioeconomic wellbeing of its population. Where there is a low-bankarization rate, this renders it more difficult for financial institutions to build their reputation to attract new customers and retain existing ones. Strategies are, therefore, proposed to improve the reputation of financial institutions in such settings and, thus, contribute to increasing the bankarization rate.Originality/valueThe findings of this study provide an original perspective that offers a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that enable banks operating in low-bankarization markets to enhance their reputation through strategies based on customer–company interaction and branding (with the variables of brand equity, brand experience and value co-creation).


Significance Market sectors under scrutiny include buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platforms, cryptocurrency exchanges and digital wallets. All have seen a recent leap in popularity, driven in part by COVID-related concerns but mostly by the mainstream interest in alternative payment methods, leaving regulators concerned. Impacts The Treasurer is likely to gain extended powers to plug gaps in regulatory policy and address convergence issues. Liquidity concerns over cryptocurrency trading could be overcome through a central bank digital currency. Concerns over lost tax revenue and consumer protection, as well as the need to contain market risk, are driving reform efforts.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
László Szilárd Szilveszter

AbstractAlthough the communist regime, in literature as well as in all areas of social life, aimed at uniformity and creating an “art” serving propaganda purposes in the entire Central and Eastern European region, the Romanian Stalinist “cultural project” differed in many respects from that of other countries, e.g. Hungary's. In this era, the discourse emphasizing revolutionary transformation and radical policy change decisively builds on the image of the enemy; and the fault-lines between past and present, old and new, and the idea of the need for continuous political struggle also prevail in both poetry and prose as eternal actualities.For the Transylvanian Hungarian community, the 1989 Regime Change was supposed to mean the end of nationalist dictatorship, of the infinitely intensified ideological/political terror, of the deliberate policy of ethnic homogenization, and the solution of minority issues as well as of internal and external conflicts. Nevertheless, after a few months of cloudless enthusiasm, in 1990, Transylvanian Hungarians had to face the rearrangement of previous power structures; they confronted national and ethnic conflicts, disguised assimilation, and economic vulnerability. This paper aims to present the ideological/political characteristics which determined Transylvanian Hungarian poetry during the Communist Dictatorship and after the 1989 Regime Change.


Author(s):  
Xavier Vives

This chapter examines the competition policy practice in different jurisdictions, focusing on the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and a number of emerging and developing economies (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, and southern Mediterranean countries). It begins with a discussion of the concerns of the competition authorities in the European Union and the United Kingdom about the banking sector and proceeds by considering practice in the main competition policy areas that have been active in banking: mergers, cartels and restrictive agreements, and state aid. Among other issues, it reviews the tensions between the prudential and the competition authorities, the recent cases of international cartels on Libor and foreign exchange market, and some landmark cases in the European Union. It also looks at consumer protection, with a new impulse from behavioral ideas, and the convergence in aims between consumer protection and competition policies.


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