El programa de transferencias condicionadas en Colombia, Familias en Acción, inició en el año 2009 un plan de bancarización de sus beneficiarios. El propósito central consiste en abrir cuentas de ahorro de bajo monto para cada uno de los beneficiarios del programa, que no sólo permiten el...

We study how consumers allocate debt across credit cards they already hold using new data on credit card activity for a representative sample of consumers with two homogeneous cards in Mexico. We find that relative prices are a very weak predictor of the allocation of debt, purchases, and...

A considerable part of the euro banknotes issued since 2002 is in circulation in Central, Eastern and Southeastern European (CESEE) countries. This can be attributed to the fact that numerous economic agents resorted to currency substitution in a parallel safe haven currency during the crisis...

This paper studies obfuscation decisions by firms in retail financial markets theoretically and experimentally. We show that more prominent firms are more likely to obfuscate. While prominent firms always choose maximum obfuscation, the obfuscation by less prominent firms depends on the degree...

Rational demand for hedging products, where there is a risk of contractual nonperformance, is fundamentally different to that for indemnity insurance.  In particular, optimal demand is zero for infinitely risk averse individuals, and is nonmonotonic in risk aversion, wealth and price.  For...

The recent financial crisis has led many to question how well businesses deliver consumer financial services and how well regulatory institutions address problems in consumer financial markets. In response, the Obama administration proposed a new agency to oversee consumer financial services,...

Payment services offered by non-banks have flourished in recent years. The author provides an overview of the different kinds of non-bank retail payments schemes currently available in Canada, illustrating each by focusing on a specific example. Current players in the Canadian marketplace...

Over-indebtedness is a multi-faced phenomenon with social, economic, legal and political aspects. In our study we present an analysis of the literature on over-indebtedness. In particular, we look at all surveys which refer to over-indebtedness or financial difficulties of households with the...

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First is to comment upon the nature of financialisation. Second is to frame how this leads financialisation to be understood whether consciously or otherwise. And, third, is to draw out implications for surveying households as their experiences and...

The intense innovational activity typical of the financial sector in the last 30 years requires households to have increasingly comprehensive and complex financial knowledge. The main objective of our study, therefore, was to assess and evaluate risk management activity, which is an integral...