Consumers and credit disclosures: credit cards and credit insurance

Under the Truth in Lending Act, the Federal Reserve has the responsibility for writing the implementing rules, which it has carried out with its Regulation Z. Because this law is so critical for federal consumer protection policy in the credit area and because it imposes significant compliance costs on creditors, questions have been raised about consumers' use of the protections inherent in Truth in Lending. Even though measurement of the precise effect of particular disclosure requirements on credit-use behavior or competition is problematic, one can study consumers' reports of their views about marketplace information conditions and their uses of required disclosures. To this end, the Federal Reserve Board and others have periodically sponsored and analyzed consumer surveys on disclosure matters since 1969, when the original act was implemented. In this article, the results of two surveys undertaken in 2001 of consumers' opinions about information availability are examined in the context of the earlier survey findings. The new data focus on consumers who use two, sometimes controversial, financial products--credit cards and credit insurance.