Ekonomi Bölümü ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümünden Ortak Seminer

Department of Economics and Department of International Relations at Yasar University kindly invite you to the seminar titled “Social Movements and Policy Entrepreneurs: The Regulation of Retail Banking Services Fees, Commissions and Charges” to be given by Kerem Çoban (Ph.D. Candidate, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy)

Date: 11 May 2017 (Thursday)

Time: 14.30 – 16.00

Place: T-623

Abstract: Despite persistent financial consumer complaints since the early 2000s, there was no regulation on retail banking services fees, commissions and charges in Turkey. The regulation emerged in 2014. This paper studies why and how the regulation emerged. In so doing, the paper aims to contribute to the emerging “regulatory pluralism” and political economy of financial consumer protection literatures, and show how a regulatory policy change is realised by a policy entrepreneur (the Minister of Customs and Trade) whose attention on the persistent consumer complaints was attracted by social movements (i.e. consumer groups). The paper finds that the policy regime sustained by the independent banking regulatory and supervisory agency and the Turkish banking sector caused stasis for more than a decade, which was challenged by consumer groups lobbying the government. Capitalising on a “policy window”, the government (i.e. the Ministry of Customs and Trade) realised the regulatory policy change by passing a new Consumer Protection Law.  The paper shows that regulatory policy change is possible despite rigidness of a policy regime.

About the Speaker: M. Kerem Coban is a PhD Candidate at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. His PhD thesis focuses on the political economy of banking regulation in Turkey with a focus on three different regulatory policy areas; financial consumer protection, macroprudential regulatory governance and the adoption of Basel III. He obtained his Master’s in Development Studies at the Graduate Institute, Geneva in 2013. His fields of interest involve multiple regulatory systems, political economy of (banking/financial) regulation and the interactions between multiple identities and political economy of regulation. His solo and co-authored work is published in Journal of Financial Regulation and Policy & Society, and he also contributed to Global Policy and LSE Review of Books with several book reviews.