Financial regulation is a form of regulation or supervision, which subjects financial institutions to certain requirements, restrictions and guidelines, aiming to maintain the stability and integrity of the financial system. This may be handled by either a government or non-government organization. Financial regulation has also influenced the structure of banking sectors by increasing the variety of financial products available. Financial regulation forms one of three legal categories which constitutes the content of financial law, the other two being market practices and case law.
Which? is a United Kingdom brand name that promotes informed consumer choice in the purchase of goods and services by testing products, highlighting inferior products or services, raising awareness of consumer rights and offering independent advice. The brand name is used by the Consumers' Association, a registered charity and company limited by guarantee that owns several businesses, including Which? Financial Services Limited, Which? Legal Limited and Which? Limited, which publishes the Which? Papers.
Near-Field Communication (NFC) is a set of communication protocols for communication between two electronic devices over a distance of 4 cm or less. NFC offers a low-speed connection with simple setup that can be used to bootstrap more-capable wireless connections.
The British Bankers' Association (BBA) was a trade association for the UK banking and financial services sector. From 1 July 2017, it was merged into UK Finance.
MARCstandards are a set of digital formats for the description of items catalogued by libraries, such as books. Working with the Library of Congress, American computer scientist Henriette Avram developed MARC in the 1960s to create records that could be read by computers and shared among libraries. By 1971, MARC formats had become the US national standard for dissemination of bibliographic data. Two years later, they became the international standard. There are several versions of MARC in use around the world, the most predominant being MARC 21, created in 1999 as a result of the harmonization of U.S. and Canadian MARC formats, and UNIMARC. UNIMARC is maintained by the Permanent UNIMARC Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and is widely used in Europe. The MARC 21 family of standards now includes formats for authority records, holdings records, classification schedules, and community information, in addition to the format for bibliographic records.
The Co-operative Group, trading as the Co-op, is a British consumer co-operative with a diverse family of retail businesses including food retail and wholesale; e-pharmacy; insurance services; legal services and funeralcare, with in excess of 3,700 locations. It is the largest consumer co-operative in the UK and Isle of Man and is owned by more than 4.6 million active members. Membership is open to everyone, provided they agree to subscribe £1 sterling in the capital of the society and share the values and principles upon which the group was founded. Members are democratically involved in setting business strategy, decide how social goals are achieved, and share in its profits – in 2018, £79M was returned to members and their chosen local community causes via the 5+1 scheme. The Group also owed £792M to its lenders.
In the United Kingdom, the Retail Prices Index or Retail Price Index (RPI) is a measure of inflation published monthly by the Office for National Statistics. It measures the change in the cost of a representative sample of retail goods and services.
A non-performing loan (NPL) is a bank loan that is subject to late repayment or is unlikely to be repaid by the borrower in full. Non-performing loans represent a major challenge for the banking sector, as it reduces the profitability of banks, and is often presented as preventing banks from lending more to businesses and consumers, which in turn slows down economic growth.
A credit bureau is a data collection agency that gathers account information from various creditors and provides that information to a consumer reporting agency in the United States, a credit reference agency in the United Kingdom, a credit reporting body in Australia, a credit information company (CIC) in India, Special Accessing Entity in the Philippines, and also to private lenders. It is not the same as a credit rating agency.
The Financial Ombudsman Service is an ombudsman in the United Kingdom. It was established in 2000, and given statutory powers in 2001 by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, to help settle disputes between consumers and UK-based businesses providing financial services, such as banks, building societies, insurance companies, investment firms, financial advisers and finance companies.
MoneySavingExpert.com is a British consumer finance information and discussion website, founded by financial journalist Martin Lewis in February 2003. The website focus is to provide people with information on saving money in the form of deals, tips and journalistic articles. In September 2012, it was bought by the moneysupermarket.com group for a value of £87M. Since 2015, Lewis has taken on the role of executive chairman, overseeing 100 staff and editors reviewing and updating the site. The website provides financial advice to interested consumers through numerous media, initially solely through a weekly "Money Tips" email, and expanding to include detailed guides and free tools. The website also aims to accelerate day-to-day financial communication, facilitated through the forum and campaigning work.
Food safety is used as a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a similar illnesses resulting from the ingestion of a common food is known as a food-borne disease outbreak. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potential health hazards. In this way food safety often overlaps with food defense to prevent harm to consumers. The tracks within this line of thought are safety between industry and the market and then between the market and the consumer. In considering industry to market practices, food safety considerations include the origins of food including the practices relating to food labeling, food hygiene, food additives and pesticide residues, as well as policies on biotechnology and food and guidelines for the management of governmental import and export inspection and certification systems for foods. In considering market to consumer practices, the usual thought is that food ought to be safe in the market and the concern is safe delivery and preparation of the food for the consumer.
The International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO), trading as SNOMED International, is an international non-profit organization that owns SNOMED CT, a leading clinical terminology used in electronic health records. IHTSDO was founded in 2007 by 9 charter member countries in order to acquire the rights of SNOMED CT from the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and make the development of a global clinical language for healthcare an international, collaborative effort.
Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent businesses from engaging in fraud or specified unfair practices in order to gain an advantage over competitors or to mislead consumers. They may also provide additional protection for the general public which may be impacted by a product even when they are not the direct purchaser or consumer of that product. For example, government regulations may require businesses to disclose detailed information about their products—particularly in areas where public health or safety is an issue, such as with food or automobiles.
The International Accreditation Forum, Inc. (IAF) is the world association of Conformity Assessment Accreditation bodies and other bodies interested in conformity assessment in the fields of management systems, products, services, personnel and other similar programs of conformity assessment. Its primary function is to develop a single worldwide program of conformity assessment which reduces risk for business and its customers by assuring them that accredited certificates may be relied upon.
Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) is both an industry standard and promotional initiative for hybrid digital TV to harmonise the broadcast, IPTV, and broadband delivery of entertainment to the end consumer through connected TVs and set-top boxes. The HbbTV Association, comprising digital broadcasting and Internet industry companies, has established a standard for the delivery of broadcast TV and broadband TV to the home, through a single user interface, creating an open platform as an alternative to proprietary technologies. Products and services using the HbbTV standard can operate over different broadcasting technologies, such as satellite, cable, or terrestrial networks.
The Consumer Council of Fiji is a statutory consumer agency that promotes and lobbies for consumer rights and interests in the Fiji Islands.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is a financial regulatory body in the United Kingdom, but operates independently of the UK Government, and is financed by charging fees to members of the financial services industry. The FCA regulates financial firms providing services to consumers and maintains the integrity of the financial markets in the United Kingdom.
TheCityUK is a private-sector membership body and industry advocacy group promoting the financial and related professional services industry of the United Kingdom (UK). TheCityUK is often referred to as the industry's "most powerful" or "most prominent" lobbyists with close links to the UK Government and to policymakers in Brussels and Washington.
The Alliance for Financial Inclusion, or AFI, is an international policy institute and public policy network that specializes in financial inclusion policy for the unbanked and underbanked population of the world. Its members include roughly 100 institutions comprising central banks, financial regulatory institutions, and financial inclusion policymakers from 80 least developed and developing countries.
