What You Should Know About the Debit Card in Your Wallet: Where the Federal Reserve’s New Overdraft Rules May Fall Short

The Lydian Payments Journal, December 2009

9 Pages Posted: 9 Dec 2009 Last revised: 24 Jan 2012

Date Written: December 7, 2009

Abstract

Bank debit cards may look like credit cards, but they certainly do not act like them when it comes to account overdrafts. This does not suggest that credit cards are better than debit cards, as complaints abound concerning the transparency of fees charged to consumers for credit card transactions as well. Nevertheless, consumers are more familiar with the workings of credit cards, often not realizing that credit and debit overdraft charges work differently. This essay supports the opt-in regulatory mechanism for overdraft fees of the general type adopted by the Federal Reserve in its Final Rules, particularly because the multi-tiered approach adopted recognizes that consumers may desire to have overdraft protection on some items, such as paper checks, but may not desire the same protection for ATM and POS transactions.

Keywords: debit, cards, payments, overdrafts, federal reserve, rulemaking, credit, tila, efta, consumers, transparency, banks, banking, fees

JEL Classification: K1, K10, K12, K19, K2, K20, K23, K29, K3, K30

Suggested Citation

Martin, Jennifer S., What You Should Know About the Debit Card in Your Wallet: Where the Federal Reserve’s New Overdraft Rules May Fall Short (December 7, 2009). The Lydian Payments Journal, December 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1520070

Jennifer S. Martin (Contact Author)

Albany Law School ( email )

80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
81
Abstract Views
1,423
Rank
545,002
PlumX Metrics