Saying that consumers continue to be confused about the risks of investments sold at banks, the New York Federal Reserve Bank is launching a series of seminars this week for senior citizens.
The seminars, which will begin Friday in a senior citizens center in Edison, N.J., are an outgrowth of a nationwide effort spearheaded by the Federal Reserve.
The educational effort suggests that regulators continue to be concerned about consumer ignorance of uninsured investments - despite a plethora of warnings in the past two years.
"This issue should have died by now, but there is a concern that many banks still haven't gotten the message," said Charles Horn, a partner at the Mayer, Brown & Platt law firm.
"Most banks have done a good job," he said, "but the regulatory concern is that they don't want most banks to do a good job - they want every bank to do a good job."
Fed officials said that bank marketers have gotten better in the past year at informing customers about risks of uninsured investment products such as mutual funds and annuities. Yet they also cited evidence that consumer ignorance persists.
"Some surveys seem to indicate that there still may be some confusion among customers," said Elizabeth Irwin-McCaughey, the New York Fed's assistant vice president of compliance examinations.
The seminars, she said, illustrate the Fed's contention that "we need to focus on education of consumers, rather than protecting them through further regulation of banks." The seminars were developed with the American Association of Retired Persons.
The Fed has also launched a series of seminars for bankers nationwide, designed to help them enforce investment sales guidelines issued in February 1994 by a regulatory task force.
Fed-sponsored investment products seminars have been held in Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, and Boston since the campaign was launched. Additional events are scheduled for many other cities, including Detroit; Little Rock, Ark.; and Billings, Mont.
