Dutch banks were put under heavy strains early in the global downturn and have comparatively weak financial buffers to cope with new shocks. Falling house prices have increased the share of households with negative home equity to nearly 35% for home-owning households and 40% for mortgage...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is considering new regulation of payday lending and bank overdraft protection. The Dodd-Frank Act, which established the CFPB, recognizes that consumers benefit from competition among providers of consumer credit products. That law requires the...

This paper provides novel evidence that consumers react in response to privacy violations, where their personally identifiable information is exposed to unauthorized parties. Exploring privacy breach incidences of U.S. banks, we find that depositors reallocate significant wealth holdings away...

Using administrative account level data, we study the largest financial inclusion program in India that led to 255 million new bank account openings. About 77% of these accounts maintain a positive balance. While the initial usage remains quite infrequent, it gradually converges to that of...

The Credit CARD Act of 2009 was intended to prevent practices in the credit card industry that lawmakers viewed as deceptive and abusive. Among other changes, the Act restricted issuers' account closure policies, eliminated certain fees, and made it more difficult for issuers to change terms on...

The Credit CARD Act of 2009 was intended to prevent practices in the credit card industry that lawmakers viewed as deceptive and abusive. Among other changes, the Act restricted issuers' account closure policies, eliminated certain fees, and made it more difficult for issuers to change terms on...

We examine to what extent a specific aspect of national culture — uncertainty avoidance — can explain cross‐country variations in (dis)trust in banks. Relying on data from the World Values Survey, we find that trust in banks is lower in countries that score high for Hofstede's uncertainty...

Following in the footsteps of the man whose name is associated with the Forty Thieves, and whose immortal words gave him access to the treasure, the twenty-first century's Alibaba found his pot of gold in Chinese consumer with his 'Open Sesame': the protection that Alipay delivers to consumers....

Using a sample of 1,619 commercial banks from 82 countries we investigate the impact of financial consumer protection policies on bank profit efficiency estimated with a production frontier function. Our results show that more regulatory requirements decrease bank profit efficiency. We confirm...

Drawing on the merit goods concept developed by Richard A. Musgrave, this paper introduces the notion of quasi-merit goods. The criteria of eligibility for merit goods are vague. A quasi-merit good constitutes a special case where government protection and sponsorship are obtained via public...