Consumer Protection on Mortgages - USA Experience

In his testimony to Congress, chairman Bernarke said that the Federal Reserve Board will implement the following measures to strenghten consumer protection on mortgages:

* improve the disclosure of the terms
* write the disclosures in a form suitable for the layman
* carry out focus group study to check if the layman understand the terms.
* ensure that the terms are fair to the consumers

Lesson: We can learn from the experience of USA. We have to make sure the financial products sold in Singapore meet the above tests.