Effective regulation of consumer credit in modern society is an ever-changing challenge. As new forms of credit emerge in free societies, regulation often lags behind. This volume explores contemporary problems related to the regulation of consumer credit in market economies with a focus on credit extended to the most vulnerable and poorest members of the community. Written by experts in the field of consumer credit regulation from Europe, North America, Australia and South Africa, the book examines some of the most important consumer credit issues facing consumers today and proposes innovative ways to protect the consumer interest in those markets.

Effective regulation of consumer credit in modern society is an ever-changing challenge. As new forms of credit emerge in free societies, regulation often lags behind. This volume explores contemporary problems related to the regulation of consumer credit in market economies with a focus on credit extended to the most vulnerable and poorest members of the community. Written by experts in the field of consumer credit regulation from Europe, North America, Australia and South Africa, the book examines some of the most important consumer credit issues facing consumers today and proposes innovative ways to protect the consumer interest in those markets.

This book covers technologies that pose new challenges for consumer policy, creative developments that can help protect consumers' economic interests, innovative approaches to addressing perennial consumer concerns, and the challenges entailed by emerging ways of creating and delivering consumer products and services. In addition, it reflects on past successes and failures of consumer law and policy, explores opportunities for moving consumer law in a different direction, and discusses potential threats to consumer welfare, especially in connection with the changing political landscape in many parts of the world. Several chapters examine consumer law in individual countries, while others have an international focus.

With financial and other personal information about us in countless databases, there is a pervasive concern in many countries that we have little control over access to potentially harmful uses of that information and that little can be done to address the problem except to give out as little information as possible and try our best to monitor our credit reports and financial accounts in an effort to detect unexpected activity if it occurs. By not enacting strong information privacy laws in the non-governmental sector, the U.S. Congress and the fifty states have effectively defaulted to a market-based model of privacy protection that relies heavily on individual self-policing and market incentives as the primary means of information control. A self-policing privacy protection model could be effective if a market for information privacy were possible-if well informed individuals could shop their privacy preferences effectively. This book examines the reasons why this is highly unlikely and why privacy laws in the United States (or the lack thereof) will not protect legitimate consumer interests in the years to come.