Consumer Welfare in Financial Services: A View from EU Competition Law

Abstract

The paper analyses to what extent financial consumer protection forms part of the competition law objective of consumer welfare that EU competition law nowadays adheres to. It argues that while EU consumer law more generally aims at protecting the final consumer, EU financial consumer protection instruments often protect a broader spectrum of customers. This wider notion of the consumer can also be found in EU competition law, where the consumer is usually likened to any customer. A notable difference between EU financial consumer protection and EU competition law, however, is that they place a different emphasis on structural goals and inherently individual components. In EU competition law, the structural protection of competition is thought to eventually protect consumers. By uniting individual and structural aspects of consumer welfare, as well as by combining reactive and proactive consumer protection, EU competition law and EU financial consumer protection law can together achieve a financial protection of consumers that naturally goes beyond what each area of the law could achieve alone. A stringent approach, however, would require the development of a comprehensive EU financial consumer law which includes both dimensions.