Search Results
Discussion Paper
Consumer bankruptcy: how unsecured lenders fare
On September 8, 2003, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a workshop on consumer bankruptcy and its effect on unsecured lenders. Professor Melissa Jacoby of Temple University?s School of Law led the workshop. A leading bankruptcy scholar, Jacoby described the current bankruptcy system and the potential impact of Chapter 7 reforms on the rights of unsecured creditors. This paper summarizes Jacoby?s presentation and the ensuing discussion. It offers a brief overview of consumer bankruptcy and the rights of unsecured creditors that lend money to ...
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, ...
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
Consumer credit counseling: credit card issuers' perspectives
On Friday, May 23, 2003, the Payment Cards Center hosted a workshop led by collections managers from J.P. Morgan Chase and Juniper Bank. The managers provided the credit card issuers' perspective on the consumer credit counseling industry. The day's discussion complemented an earlier workshop at which representatives from local consumer credit counseling services (CCCS) discussed their business model. After describing the ways in which new market entrants have affected the counseling industry, the issuers discussed the challenges associated with administering and appropriately valuing the ...
Discussion Paper
The laws, regulations, and industry practices that protect consumers who use electronic payment systems: ACH E-checks & prepaid cards
This is the second in a series of three papers that examines the protections available to users of various electronic payment vehicles who fall victim to fraud, discover an error on their statement, or have a dispute with a merchant after making a purchase. Specifically, it examines the federal and state laws that protect consumers in the three situations described above as well as the relevant association, network, and bank policies that may apply. The protection information included in this paper is derived from a wide range of public and non-public sources, including federal and state ...
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
The laws, regulations, and industry practices that protect consumers who use electronic payment systems: policy considerations
This is the third in a series of three papers that examines the laws, regulations, and voluntary industry practices that may aid consumers who contest an electronic transaction because of error, fraud, or merchant dispute. The first two papers describe the complex web of protections available to users of four popular electronic payment mechanisms: credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, and ACH e-checks. This third paper considers how protections related to fraud, error, and disputes affect market participants. The paper concludes that (i) the current protection mechanisms make it more ...
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 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 ...