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Commentary » PYMNTS Voice
Despite years of predictions suggesting that cash would one day disappear, recent data suggests cash is not only here to stay, but its usage may in fact be on the rise. Many pundits have long believed that dirty, "inefficient" paper money would soon be replaced by plastic cards, mobile payments, and possibly even biometric payments (has anyone seen "Demolition Man"?).
As we press into our few remaining days before the holiday, many of us are taking the time to log on to retailer websites (most often at work) to take care of some last-minute shopping. If you're like most consumers, there are a handful of online sites where you shop frequently. You've probably registered with those merchants, giving them your payment, billing, and shipping details tied to a username and password. Maybe for some of those folks for whom finding the right gift is always a challenge, you might log in to an online search site to look for gift ideas, ask for suggestions from friends in your social network site, or you might even respond to an inbound e-mail pitching a new product idea.
The Consumer Financial Protection Board, which was set up by Title X of the Dodd-Frank Act, is waiting for the President to appoint a director to organize the new agency and pursue its mandate to prevent unfair, deceptive and abusive practices. Insights into how the agency may go about its job, and think about the problem of consumer credit, can be gleaned from the forceful and influential article by Elizabeth Warren, along with Oren Bar-Gill, who has been the leading advocate for a new agency focused on consumer credit.
The heat is on financial regulatory reform this week as Democrats and Republicans jockey for who is protecting the taxpayers from the big bankers. Score one for the Republicans who yesterday forced the Democrats back to the bargaining table by preventing Dodd bill from moving forward. Both parties will claim that they are pushing for real financial reform that will prevent another crisis from happening and making sure there aren’t any more bailouts.
Revitalizing credit, creating jobs, and stimulating the U.S. economy was the subject of a panel that I participated in last week at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Capital Markets Summit. A lot of people have said that businesses — especially small ones — can't get credit. A big question for the panel was whether that's really true. Here's what I said.
David S. Evans, frequent PYMNTS.com contributor and author of Paying with Plastic, was cited in today’s Wall Street Journal’s editorial for his influential work in opposition of the Consumer Financial Protection Act.
Last week the General Accountability Office (GAO) released it much awaited report on interchange fees. Congress had asked the GAO, the respected investigative arm of Congress, to wade into this battle between merchants and cards systems earlier this year when it passed the CARD Act. There's something for everyone in this report which is why both merchant and cardholder advocates are claiming that it backs their positions. Here's what GAO finds:
Just when there seemed to be landslide support for charging for content among struggling publishers Yahoo has thrown some cold water on the faces of the eager mob. Of course talk is cheap and online publishers have been approaching subscription models with great trepidation.
Interesting article yesterday on the notion that time spent on-line by adults in the US is flat, after years of rapid growth. The article cites a Forrester Survey that states web surfing now takes up about 12 hours of our week (double what it was in 2004) but did not see significant growth from last year’s survey. The interview by Ad Age of the analyst who authored the study ties the flat growth to users being more efficient with the web, so they don’t have to spend as much time figuring stuff out.
Everywhere we go, it seems that people believe that MySpace is for young people and Facebook is for an older crowd. Translation: brands perceive there is more value to being on Facebook than on MySpace.
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