South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service and the financial sector are moving to train specialist personnel in financial consumer protection.

The FSS and the Korea Financial Training Institute on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Federation of Banks and eight financial holding firms - KB Financial, Shinhan Financial, Woori Financial, Hana Financial, NH NongHyup Financial, iM Financial, BNK Financial and JB Financial - to foster financial consumer protection specialists and strengthen capabilities.

Each institution agreed to cooperate in expanding consumer protection education for employees at financial companies and raising consumer protection awareness across the financial sector.

The FSS will support advisory services on educational content and provide lectures so the consumer protection curriculum can reflect supervisory direction and the flow of institutional improvements.

The Korea Financial Training Institute will develop and operate the financial consumer protection curriculum and take charge of training specialists. The Korea Federation of Banks will identify training demand among the participating institutions and support communication and collaboration.

The financial holding firms agreed to encourage participation by their employees in training to enhance field-oriented consumer protection capabilities.

The training curriculum will also be expanded to match rank and job function. The Korea Financial Training Institute will revamp its existing "financial internal control executive course" into a "financial internal control and consumer protection executive course."

It will also launch a "financial consumer protection leader" course for prospective chief consumer officers and department heads, and a "financial consumer protection practitioner course" for staff in consumer protection departments.

For sales staff at branches, it will strengthen training on preventing mis-selling of investment products and responding to voice phishing. It will newly operate the "consumer protection practice sales staff must know" course and the "voice phishing prevention, response and follow-up management for finance professionals" course.

It will revamp the existing "financial consumer protection counselor" qualification into a "financial consumer protection specialist" qualification and strengthen the requirements for obtaining it.

The institutions plan to review training performance and feedback from the field going forward and improve the effectiveness of training by reflecting changes in the financial environment and major consumer protection issues.

FSS Governor Lee Chan-jin (이찬진) stressed that "as the financial environment changes, the risks facing financial consumers are also appearing in diverse and complex ways," and that "financial consumer protection cannot be achieved by institutions alone, and can be completed when awareness and practice in the financial field are added."

He added that "financial consumer protection is not a short-term cost but a long-term investment that increases trust in the financial industry and its growth potential," and that "we will spare no institutional support so that consumer protection efforts can bear visible results in the financial field."