Update Newsletter: Summer 2003

Research Explores Credit Card Pricing and Disclosure

Earlier this year, Mark Furletti, the Payment Cards Center's credit card industry specialist, completed research for a paper entitled "Credit Card Pricing Developments and Their Disclosure." In the paper, Furletti examines the history and dynamics of credit card pricing over the past 10 years. Analyzing proprietary issuer pricing data and 150 lender-borrower contracts from the largest credit card issuers in the U.S., he explains how new technologies, increasing competition, and consumer awareness have influenced card pricing.

Overall, he observes that increasingly complex fee structures and computational techniques have accompanied the record-low annual percentage rates that many low-risk consumers currently enjoy. Furletti also examines how these price-related developments are addressed by the current regulatory disclosure requirements embodied in Regulation Z (Truth in Lending). A copy of his paper is available on the Center's website.

Update Newsletter: Summer 2003

Research Explores Credit Card Pricing and Disclosure

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