Tech Empowers Financial Protection; Enterprises Take Responsibility

The notice issued on September 14th once again emphasized "data security," "privacy protection," and "protecting consumer rights" among other things.

With the rapid development of the financial market and the increasing variety of financial products, the popularization of financial knowledge and consumer protection work have become particularly important. During the "Financial Education Publicity Month" conducted in September this year, institutions such as Xinwang Bank, Zhongyuan Consumer Finance, and Lufax Holding successively held a variety of activities both online and offline with rich content and diverse forms.

Under the in-depth exploration of relevant market entities, technology empowerment throughout the entire process and the normalization of popularizing consumer protection knowledge have become the two main themes of consumer rights protection.

01 Internally: Technology Empowering Consumer Protection

Recently, the person in charge of the relevant department of the State Financial Supervision Administration pointed out that in recent years, mobile Internet applications have become an important channel for online services of banking financial institutions, insurance financial institutions, and financial holding companies. While enhancing the convenience of financial services, there are also problems such as a large number of applications, repetitive functions, and low user satisfaction and activity levels.

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For the development of enterprises, the importance of user privacy protection is not only reflected in compliance, preventing information leaks, and maintaining market order but also plays a significant role in maintaining user trust and promoting business development.

CTO of Weixin Jinke, Shi Hongzhe, believes that promoting high-level network security construction is not only an intrinsic requirement for corporate compliance management and a practical measure to improve the consumer rights protection system but also an important reflection of the company's fulfillment of social responsibility and alignment with the international development trend of ESG.

In recent years, more and more companies have further integrated technology into data security and user privacy protection, such as Xinwang Bank's exploration of a comprehensive solution driven by the dual development of secure multi-party computation and federated learning technologies, integrating big data, artificial intelligence, and other technologies to efficiently support data security applications and protect customer privacy; Weixin Jinke has created a network security defense system that covers the entire process of host server assets, business application systems, and user data information security protection.

In addition, the rapidly evolving AI technology has long been applied to specific links such as anti-fraud reminders, intelligent consulting, and complaint processing.

Taking anti-fraud reminders as an example, Xinye Technology has sent nearly 4,000 risk warning messages to relevant users through an "intelligent driving + manual assistance" mechanism for identifying black and gray industries. Weixin Jinke has also added pop-up functions on the login pages of product Apps to remind users of suspicious operations such as telecom fraud; at the same time, it regularly makes AI calls and sends anti-fraud text message reminders to users.Lufax Holding's responsible person stated that the full-process consumer rights protection system has strengthened the disclosure of key business information, safeguarding customers' rights to be informed, to trade fairly, and to make independent choices.

02 Outward: Popularizing Financial Knowledge

From the perspective of corporate practice, technology empowerment of consumer protection and the popularization of financial knowledge are both indispensable methods in consumer rights protection.

During this year's Financial Education Publicity Month, various companies have successively carried out related activities. For instance, Lufax Holding has conducted over 30 offline "Party Building and Consumer Protection China Tour" knowledge popularization events across the country; online, it has launched a series of short videos titled "Experts on Consumer Protection." Zhongyuan Consumer Finance has also leveraged its technological features and resource advantages to adapt to local conditions by entering rural areas, communities, campuses, and enterprises, continuously carrying out characteristic education and publicity activities both online and offline.

A responsible person from Xinwang Bank stated that they have already entered communities to conduct financial consumer protection knowledge popularization garden parties, integrating financial consumer protection knowledge into entertaining games. "At the same time, we will also carry out popular science activities in shopping districts and subway entrances, disseminating practical information such as basic financial knowledge and financial fraud prevention to the public."

It has been observed that in addition to the concentrated publicity periods in March and September each year, some companies have established a normalized consumer education and publicity mechanism, such as Xinwang Bank, Zhongyuan Consumer Finance, and Weixin Jinke.

Zhongyuan Consumer Finance's Deputy General Manager Shao Hang stated, "Zhongyuan Consumer Finance has always regarded consumer rights protection as the primary task. While providing financial products to consumers, we continuously enhance the financial literacy of the general financial consumers through various promotional activities, reminding consumers to choose legitimate, licensed financial institutions, and to effectively protect their personal information and legal rights and interests."

A responsible person from Xinwang Bank suggested that financial institutions should fully leverage their own advantages, actively promoting financial education and knowledge through official websites, mobile applications, official WeChat accounts, and other special topic displays and push notifications. They should utilize offline branch channels to fully display activity slogans, financial education works, and optimize and improve financial education methods. At the same time, they should continuously innovate activity formats, expand diverse channels, and enhance the quality and effectiveness of activities, increasing the specificity, coverage, and influence of financial education.

Weixin Jinke relies on its own channels such as the official website, public account, and product App, using online consumer protection classrooms and other methods to explain consumer protection knowledge to users through real cases. Data shows that throughout 2023, it has published a total of 15 financial knowledge lectures, with a cumulative user view count of 117,000 times.

However, some practitioners have admitted that popularizing financial knowledge to consumers is a social necessity, but not an individual necessity, and there are some difficulties, such as some consumers not actively learning when they do not need it, and even having a resistant attitude. From the perspective of enterprises, they should explore more and richer methods to improve the financial literacy of the entire population.