How does trust interact with financial services markets? What impact did the financial crisis really have on trust? And what more long-term, endemic problems in the market have driven distrust? With a major Social Market Foundation analysis of financial services markets combined with expert essays, A Confidence Crisis? Restoring Trust in Financial Services answers these questions and proposes a set of radical policy solutions to correct market failures.
The report recommends government intervention to improve the quality of financial services, shifting competition onto the price of improved services, while maintaining consumer choice. It lays down a challenge to policymakers: stop tinkering at the fringes of the financial market, and make the market work better across the board by cutting through the inherent and unavoidable information asymmetries between consumers and firms, and by making shopping around easier. Only then will consumer trust in the consumer finance market be rebuilt, to the benefit of all.
