“The Impact of Implementation of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) Regulation toward the Financial Literacy and Financial Inclusion”
In recent years, there had been a significant increase in the development of complex financial products. The financial instruments were becoming more sophisticated. The development should be followed by the increasing concern about consumer protection in the financial services sector. The Financial Services Authority (OJK) an independent institution that is responsible in controlling the activities of financial sectors in Indonesia is the institution that functions to regulate the consumer protection in financial services sector in Indonesia.
One of OJK`s efforts to protect the consumers in financial sector in Indonesia was by issuing the Financial Services Authority Regulation No.1/POJK.07/2013 on consumer protection in financial services sector. The regulation laid down five principles of consumer protection in financial sector, i.e 1) transparency, 2) fair treatment, 3) reliability, 4) consumer privacy, and 5) complaint handling and lawsuit settlement. This survey on consumer protection aimed to map the recent condition of the knowledge of consumer protection from the perspectives of the society or the financial service users. Specifically, this survey aimed to obtain the information on: 1) the effectiveness of Regulation No.1/POJK.07/2013 on consumer protection and the regulation implementation in increasing the financial literacy and financial inclusion; 2) the dominant aspects of consumer protection in supporting the increase of financial literacy and financial inclusion; and 3) the obstacles or challenges encountered by the consumers in increasing the financial literacy and financial inclusion.
This survey was conducted in two cities, Surabaya and Makassar. In each city, three villages were taken to represent highly developed, medium developed, and low developed village. The selection of respondents was carried out by using the method of random sampling and the selected sample could represent the characteristics of various clusters, i.e. sex, age, level of education, occupation, and region and social level, etc. The respondents in this survey were the customers of the financial institutions, which are those who used the financial products.
The data resulting from this survey provided OJK an overview of the knowledge of the customers of the financial institutions on consumer protection in financial service sector. The data from this survey also provided the principle information of consumer protection that was still not fully understood by the customers in the financial institutions. In addition, the data from this survey also provided the information on obstacles or challenges encountered by the society to access financial products and services. Therefore, the result of this survey could become factors of consideration for OJK in the efforts to increase the society knowledge regarding consumer protection in financial services sector, financial literacy, and financial inclusion.