In this Discussion Paper, Jonathan Zinman, an assistant professor of economics at Dartmouth College and a visiting scholar with the Payment Cards Center, makes a casual comparison of industry and household data sets which suggests that households underreport credit card borrowing by a factor of...

Small payments of less than $5 have resisted the wave of electronification that has swept consumer payments in recent years. However, a number of innovations — both new technologies and new ways of doing business — have done much to make such electronic “micropayments” less expensive and...

On August 3, 2006, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a workshop led by Ronald Congemi, senior vice president of strategic industry relations for First Data Corporation, to examine developments on both the supply side and demand side that are influencing...

This paper describes the U.S. financial system’s response to the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina and examines how financial safety nets helped meet consumers’ needs in the aftermath of the storm. Overall, we find that consumers who hold deposit accounts at financial institutions are...

This paper describes the characteristics of closed-system and open-system prepaid cards. Of particular interest is a class of open-system programs that offer a set of features similar to conventional deposit accounts using card-based payment applications. The benefits that open-system prepaid...

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...

The causes and ramifications of the rise in the consumer debt burden over time have been subject to much debate. This paper first offers a brief overview and analysis of the key economic variables used to evaluate consumer debt levels. The principal focus of the paper, however, is a broad review...

On September 13 and 14, 2006, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the Electronic Funds Transfer Association (EFTA) hosted a conference entitled “Information Security, Data Breaches, and Protecting Cardholder Information: Facing Up to the Challenges.” The...

On May 3-4, 2006, the Payment Cards Center hosted a two-day conference titled “The Role of Electronic Payments in Disaster Recovery: Providing More Than Convenience.” The event brought together participants from a range of groups, including financial institutions and other financial service...