While financial education is crucial, it should clearly not relieve
financial institutions of their role of providing the consumer with
effective, clear and comprehensible information before contracts
are concluded.
Furthermore, the importance of financial education has never
been starker than in the current climate of economic deceleration,
though the Namibia Financial Stability Report – April 2017 shows
that the Non-Banking Financial Institutions (NBFIs) remained
sound and do not pose systemic risks to the country’s financial
system. Growth of the assets of the NBFIs sector remained positive
and is expected to continue going forward, but the regulator feels
that consumers should understand the financial products and
services they buy better.
Consumers of financial services and products must be brave
enough to listen to their heart regarding inflation used by the
medical aid funds and the medical insurance companies to
determine medical aid fund contributions and insurance premiums.
Obviously this means that the consumers have to dig more in their
pockets. Read more in this edition.
Other factors that sometimes lead to
inflations are:
• Money laundering and terrorist financing (They
are criminalised by law in Namibia and can be
committed by abusing services in the financial
sector.)
• Insurance fraud (which is going to be discussed
in this bulletin for you to have a broader overview
and to take necessary precautions.)
Therefore, we urge the consumers of the financial services
and products to be bold enough to use their voices by visiting
NAMFISA for any issues pertaining to their financial rights and
responsibilities. NAMFISA makes this easy for you by giving you
various options to submit your complaints as discussed in this
edition.
Having said this, have a pleasant read and don’t hesitate
to visit the NAMFISA Consumer Education website:
www.educates.namfisa.com.na for more information and for you
to log any query related to NAMFISA Consumer Education.
