Search Results
Discussion Paper
Federal consumer protection regulation: disclosures and beyond
On June 10, 2005, the Payment Cards Center hosted a symposium entitled ?Federal Consumer Protection Regulation: Disclosures and Beyond.? The symposium brought together credit card industry leaders, legal scholars, consumer advocates, economists, and federal regulators to discuss standardized credit card disclosures and other means of protecting credit card consumers. This paper summarizes the day?s discussion and details the recommendations of symposium participants. In general, these recommendations involve (1) making specific changes to current credit card disclosures, (2) improving the ...
Discussion Paper
An overview of smart card technology and markets
As part of the Payment Cards Center's series of discussion papers, this paper provides an overview of smart card technology and its potential for significantly increasing payment card functionality. In addition to reviewing the current market for smart cards in the U.S., this paper examines the costs and barriers associated with their wide spread adoption. European and US smart card acceptance is compared. In addition, this paper provides background on the technological and infrastructure developments behind smart cards, a discussion of current smart card applications, and a review of smart ...
Discussion Paper
The debate over the National Bank Act and the preemption of state efforts to regulate credit cards
The National Bank Act (NBA), the 140- year-old statute that led to the creation of nationally chartered banks, has likely been one of the most influential forces in the formation and development of the U.S. credit card industry. The NBA gives nationally chartered banks a wide range of powers and protections. One of these protections, the ability to disregard certain state laws, is currently at the center of a very heated debate. The regulator of national banks, the OCC, recently issued a rule that interprets the act as essentially preempting most state efforts to protect credit card ...
Discussion Paper
An overview of credit card asset-backed securities
Summary: On Friday, October 25, 2002, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia held a workshop that focused on credit card asset-backed securities. Mark Adelson, head of structured finance research at Nomura Securities International, led the workshop. A veteran analyst of the ABS market, Adelson has written numerous articles and special reports on securitization. During the workshop, Adelson explained the growth, pricing, and mechanics of credit card asset-backed securities. He also discussed some key issues currently facing ABS markets. This paper supplements ...
Discussion Paper
Mandatory arbitration clauses in the credit card industry
On September 26, 2002, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia held a workshop that explored the use of mandatory arbitration clauses in credit card agreements between issuers and consumers. Leading the workshop was Alan S. Kaplinsky, chair of the Consumer Financial Services Group at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP. A pioneer in the development of consumer arbitration clauses, Kaplinsky described the arbitration process as a conflict resolution mechanism in the payment cards industry. He also provided a contextual overview of the Federal Arbitration Act of ...
Discussion Paper
Measuring U.S. credit card borrowing: an analysis of the G.19's estimate of consumer revolving credit
This paper describes the Federal Reserve System?s monthly estimate of revolving consumer credit as published in the G.19 statistical release. It analyzes the source data, sampling methods, and calculations on which this estimate currently relies. In addition, it proposes a framework for analyzing the revolving credit statistic and suggests modifications to how the estimate is calculated and presented. The paper concludes that the revolving credit estimate is highly accurate and proposes that the System consider five modifications that would improve its usefulness to researchers.
Discussion Paper
Credit card pricing developments and their disclosure
Public data, proprietary issuer data, and data collected by the author from a review of over 150 lender-borrower contracts from 15 of the largest issuers in the U.S. suggest that, over the past 10 years, credit card issuers have drastically changed the way that they price their product. This paper outlines the history and dynamics of credit card pricing over the past 10 years and examines how new pricing methods are addressed by current regulatory disclosure requirements.
Discussion Paper
Payment system regulation and how it causes consumer confusion
On October 14, 2004, the Payment Cards Center hosted a workshop led by Professor Mark Budnitz of Georgia State University School of Law. Budnitz, the author of four books and many Law Review articles on consumer payments, described how the current regime of consumer payment regulation and various new payment products have led to much confusion among consumers. He also discussed a remedy for this situation: the adoption of uniform federal consumer protection standards. This paper summarizes the workshop and is organized around two of Budnitz?s key assertions: (1) the current regulatory ...
Discussion Paper
Financial privacy: perspectives from the payment cards industry
On Friday, March 21, 2003, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a one-day symposium on financial privacy entitled "Financial Privacy: Perspectives from the Payment Cards Industry." The Center invited legal scholars, federal banking regulators, and privacy officers from the largest credit card issuers and information providers in the U.S. to discuss the key privacy issues facing the industry
Discussion Paper
Measuring credit card industry chargeoffs: a review of sources and methods
The percentage of credit card loans that are charged off by card issuers during a particular month or quarter is an important metric. It provides insights into the financial health of the credit card industry and the U.S. consumer. After offering a brief overview of credit card chargeoff reporting, this paper describes five different chargeoff statistics in detail. Sampling techniques, frequency, availability, and calculation methods for each statistic are discussed and compared. One of the paper?s key findings is that the various on-balance-sheet and off-balance-sheet chargeoff measures, ...