NBER-支付还是自动转账？金融科技创新与信用卡支付-英

NBER WORKING PAPER SERIESTO PAY OR AUTOPAY? FINTECH INNOVATION AND CREDIT CARD PAYMENTSJialan WangWorking Paper 32332http://www.nber.org/papers/w32332NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH1050 Massachusetts AvenueCambridge, MA 02138April 2024The data for this study were obtained under a non-disclosure agreement with an anonymous data provider, and I am thankful to several employees at this company for sharing their time and expertise in making this project possible. Kelly Hyde, Daniel Grodzicki, Michaela Pagel, and seminar and conference participants at the University of Illinois, Data, Information and Welfare in Household Finance at Chicago Booth, RAND BeFi, OCC Symposium on the Implications of Financial Technology for Banking, AEA, UNC Conference on Market-Based Solutions for Reducing Wealth Inequality, JPMC Institute, University of Wisconsin, Northeastern, and Georgia Tech provided useful feedback. Hejia Liu and Matthew Boyd provided outstanding research assistance. Contact: jialanw@gmail.com. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.© 2024 by Jialan Wang. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source.To Pay or Autopay? Fintech Innovation and Credit Card PaymentsJialan WangNBER Working Paper No. 32332April 2024JEL No. D12,D14,G21,G41,G51ABSTRACTDigital technologies and fintech firms have rapidly reshaped the consumer financial landscape in recent years, and have the potential to help consumers make better decisions and improve their financial health. Existing technologies such as autopay are also experiencing increased takeup, a trend that could be accelerated by innovations such as open banking. I examine the extent to which autopay affects payment behavior for customers of a credit card serviced by a fintech company. Using sharp changes in the company's practices in a regression discontinuity design, I find that a small nudge accounts for half of all autopay enrollment during the sample period, and that enrollment at account opening is persistent. Autopay increases the likelihood of making the minimum payment by 20 to 29pp, more than doubling the baseline rate. The results show that seemingly minor technological defaults can have economically large effects on consumer credit outcomes.Jialan WangDepartment of FinanceUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign340 Wohlers Hall1206 S. Sixth Street MC-706Champaign, IL 61820and NBERjialanw@gmail.com1IntroductionAs shown by Keys and Wang (2019), credit card payments in the United States exhibit a highlybimodal distribution around the minimum and full payment amoun