Consumer Finance
Our Consumer Finance Institute researches how people earn, spend, save, and invest, as well as how credit markets and payment systems affect the economy. Our goal is to foster a healthy consumer sector, a stable financial system, and a resilient regional and national economy.
Working Paper
Recurring-Payment Sensitivity in Household Borrowing
WP 25-22 – This paper provides evidence of payment sensitivity in household borrowing decisions: Mortgage borrowers respond to the size of the recurring payment as opposed to discounted total loan costs when choosing between loan options.
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Lender File
31 Jul ’25
The HMDA Lender File includes characteristics of firms receiving mortgage applications and originating loans. The data set enables users to connect HMDA filers to their parent organizations and compare a filer’s lending over time.
Working Paper
Interchange Fees in Payment Networks: Implications for Prices, Profits, and Welfare
WP 25-18 – This paper examines the level of a wholesale price — the interchange fee — typically set by a payment card network that influences the distribution of acceptance costs and benefits incurred or received by merchants and consumers.
Brief
Missing Payments and Lack of Funds
June 2025
To explore the topic of how frequently consumers miss a monthly payment and how worried they are about missing more in the future, the Consumer Finance Institute (CFI) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia added a question to the quarterly Labor, Income, Finances, and Expectations (LIFE) Survey.
Event
Nov
6-7
2025
New Perspectives on Consumer Behavior in Credit and Payments Markets Conference – 2025
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Report
LIFE Survey Report – April 2025
This report is part of a quarterly series on key observations from the Labor, Income, Finances, and Expectations (LIFE) Survey. Data from the survey provide insight into consumers’ recent financial lives and their future expectations.
Working Paper
The Effect of the Great Recession on Student Loan Borrowing and Repayment
WP 25-13 – We study the long-term effect of the Great Recession on federal student loan borrowing and repayment. Using detailed longitudinal data on federal student loan borrowers, we compare labor markets that faced varying degrees of unemployment severity during the economic downturn.