은행의 대외영업과 방문판매법 적용에 관한 연구

Abstract

In a case where a customer intends to enter into new financial transactions with a bank such as opening deposit accounts or installment savings account and subscribing to investment products like a mutual fund, traditionally the customer would visit the bank’s branch and go through the face-to-face counseling process with a bank staff. Nowadays, however, the bank’s business activities outside its premises have been constantly being vitalized as a result of the innovation of IT development, gradual decrease of the number of customers visiting branches in person, increasing needs of customers for the bank’s proactive service by way of visiting the customers and the requirement for the bank to secure a new sales channel. Nevertheless, according to the current Door-to-Door Sales Act(“DDSA”) and the relevant authoritative ruling of the Fair Trade Commission in charge the DDSA, it is highly unlikely not to apply the DDSA to the bank’s business activities outside its premises (e.g. soliciting financial products or initiating financial transactions with customers and the like). As a consequence, the banks are forced to cut down on their business activities outside the premises, and it is practically impossible to solicit financial investment products due to the concern arising from the right to withdraw. As such, the DDSA which originally meant to secure customers’ rights and interests, has resulted in not only unreasonably restricting the bank’s normal business activities but also hindering the benefits and needs of the customers who are willing to initiate financial transactions with a bank without paying a visit to the branch in person. Even from a standpoint of comparative laws, not a few jurisdictions like the EU, Germany, Japan, etc. have given special treatment to financial services specifically carving financial services out of the purview of the door-to-door sales legislation or restricting a customer from exercising the right to withdraw relating to financial products in the nature of investment securities. Besides, other laws for consumer protection such as the Installment Transactions Act, the Act on the Consumer Protection in the E-Commerce other than the DDSA in our jurisdiction, have explicitly codified an exception that financial investment products are not subject to those acts. On top of this, the relevant laws (e.g. the Banking Act or the Capital Market and Financial Investment Services Act, etc.) have multi-layered measures for protecting financial customers transacting with a bank so that there would be no legislative loopholes as to customers’ rights and interests even without applying the DDSA. I have an opinion that it is required to address the above-mentioned legal concerns by way of clearly excluding all kinds of financial products being offered by banks out of the purview of the DDSA. This article aims to review relevant issues caused by applying the DDSA to bank’s business activities outside its business premises and present legal alternatives to solve the issues.