투자자문업의 이해상충 관리 강화와 금융소비자 보호방안 - EU MiFID II의 시사점 -

In 2014, the EU modified the MiFID in order to more strongly protect investors from the risks of conflicts of interest. The new MiFID (MiFID II) strengthened the informational accountability of financial advisers and introduced new regulations related to conflicts of interest in addition to the existing conflicts of interest management system. The MiFID II stipulates that financial advisers who provide independent investment advice should not take monetary benefits including fees or commissions from investment product providers in relation to investment advice. This regulation is expected to be able to block off the conflicts of interest that may arise between customers and financial advisers because financial advisers receive fees not from their customers but from product providers. The informational accountability of financial advisers should also get sufficient attention with respect to the management of conflicts of interest. The MiFID II intends to address the information gap between customers and financial advisers and induce customers to make rational judgments and decisions and accordingly strengthen informational accountability of financial advisers. To this end financial advisers under the new regulation should provide customers with the information of the characteristics of investment products they recommend including risks in investment, fees, charges, conflicts of interest and so on in the form with which customers can easily understand. This disclosure regulation, however, should take into account the fact that more information may cause information overload and aggravate bounded rationality of investors. The regulations of investor protection in the EU could be partially adopted into the Korean regulations with respect to the management of conflicts of interest between investors and financial advisers as follows: firstly, efforts and attention should be continuously paid to reform for the purpose of empowering financial consumers and reinforcing the protection of investors. With a view to ensuring the decision-making power of investors regulators should consider research in psychology and behavioral economics in regard to the influence of psychological bias of investors. Moreover, it would be necessary to reinforce informational accountabilities of financial advisors and independent advisory service would also be newly introduced to secure quality investment advice.