디지털 경제와 핀테크 - 소비자 보호를 중심으로 - (Digital Economy and FinTech in the view of Consumer Protection)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국사법학회
· 수록지 정보 : 비교사법 / 26권 / 3호 / 285 ~ 330페이지
· 저자명 : 김두진

초록

핀테크는 디지털경제와 결합되어 이전의 아날로그경제에서는 예상할 수 없었던 혁신을 실현시켰고, 제4차 산업혁명의 진전과 더불어 현재 그 영역이 크라우드펀딩, P2P 렌딩, 인터넷뱅킹, 인터넷전문은행, 블록체인과 분산 원장 기술, 빅데이터 및 인공지능의이용으로 계속 확대되고 있다. 본고에서는 디지털경제에서 핀테크의 시원과 현황을 개관하고 그것의 규제가 혁신과 소비자보호의 관점에서 갖는 함의에 관하여 고찰하였다.
핀테크는 해당 혁신기업에게는 혁신적 기술을 이용한 창업이나 사업 성장을 가능하게 해주는 것은 물론 관련시장의 소비자잉여를 증가시켜서 국민경제 전체의 소비자후생을 증진시키는 광의의 소비자보호를 위한 긍정적 역할을 하고 있다. 그러나 핀테크는 소비자가 이해하기 어려운 기술적 특성으로 인하여 오히려 금융 사기나 개인정보유출, 정보비대칭에 수반되는 불완전판매 등으로 소비자피해를 유발할 수도 있다.
핀테크산업의 발전을 위하여 기존 기업들에게 요구되던 규제를 핀테크기업에 대하여 완화하거나 철폐해야 하는 것은 아니다. 예컨대 우리나라는 「금융혁신지원 특별법」 에 의하여 영국에서 시작된 규제 샌드박스제를 핀테크에 대하여 시행중이다. 규제 샌드박스는 산업의 혁신을 위하여 큰 도움을 주는 제도이지만, 소비자들과 금융시스템에대한 위험이 실질화될 수 있다는 점, 그러한 이유에서 고객들은 샌드박스내의 기업들과의 거래에 참여하지 않을 수 있고 이것은 핀테크의 성장을 지연시킬 수 있다는 점 등의 단점을 가진다. 금융소비자의 보호 없이 핀테크를 통한 금융시장의 혁신과 번영은 이룰 수 없는 것이므로 소비자보호라는 정책 목적은 규제완화의 한계이다. 보다 근본적으로는 규제형식의 변화와 불필요한 규제의 폐지가 필요하다.

영어초록

FinTech is the term used to describe the impact of new technologies on the financial services industry. As the 4th Industrial Revolution is making progress, crowd funding, P2P lending, internet banking, online bank, block chain and distributed ledger technology, big data analytics and artificial intelligence have given rise to new services and business models by established financial institutions and new startups.
This article aims to survey the inception and present condition of FinTech and to explore the implication of regulating FinTech firms in the viewpoint of innovation and consumer protection.
The portion of the FinTech firms (including FinTechs and TechFins) is more and more increasing in the financial services market. And the FinTech changes rapidly and continuously. Fintech is at the confluence of various digital technologies and financial areas, regarded as positive in the eye of consumer protection in the wide sense with helping many startups and scaleups proposing innovative financial services and producing consumer surplus in the relevant market and improving consumer welfare in the national economy dimension.
However established financial services businesses are facing some of the challenges that fintech firms initiate and they will feel receiving unfair treatment if FinTech firms are exempted from existing regulation.
The Framework Act On Administrative Regulations defines that Regulations as restrictions on the rights of citizens (including foreigners subject to Acts of the Republic of Korea) or duties imposed thereon by the State or local governments to accomplish a specific administrative objective, which are prescribed by Acts and subordinate statutes, Municipal Ordinances or Municipal Rules. For the improvement of FinTech, it is not necessary to exempt FinTech firms from the regulations all the existing financial services should comply with. Rather, we should consider the necessity of a deregulation in particular from all financial services firms. Success of FinTech firms should be resulted not from preferential treatment but from their innovation.
Due to the difficulties accompanied with understanding FinTech, consumers could be harmed from financial fraud or incomplete selling of financial products.
Namely FinTech could give rise to the consumer protection problem in the narrow sense. Generally, although regulators around the world have been careful to avoid early regulation of cryptocurrency-related activity so as not to stifle innovation, and so as to better understand a technology that is still in its infancy, yet fast developing, high levels of fraudulent activity and potential harm to consumers are now clear drivers towards selective regulation and greater guidance in this field.
Since the FCA launched its regulatory sandbox, there has been a proliferation of sandboxes announced by other jurisdictions including Australia, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and Hong Kong. The Republic of Korea launched regulatory sandbox for FinTech since April 2019 when the Special Act on Support for Financial Innovation was enforced. Because testing in the sandbox is not fully regulated, risks for consumers and the financial system could materialize in the regulatory sandbox. And clients, for that reason, may refrain from entering into business with FinTech firms in the sandbox and this may slow the FinTech’s growth. Therefore the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Securities and Exchange Commission in the U.S., the German BaFin as well as both French regulators APRI and AMF have declined to create regulatory sandboxes. Without ensuring consumer protection, we could not anticipate the financial innovation and prosperity in the market. So the purpose of consumer protection is limit to the deregulation policy. The fundamental solution for overcoming various obstacles would be the substituting principle-based regulations for positive regulations and the abolition of unnecessary regulation.
The so-called RegTech has the potential to free up large sums of operational and capital expenditure which are currently spent on compliance and to enable us to develope smart regulation.

참고자료

· 없음