Learning by Bouncing: Overdraft Experience and Salience

Overdraft credit, when banks and credit unions allow customers to spend more than their checking account holds, has many critics. One fundamental concern is whether overdrafts are salient—whether account holders know how often they overdraw and how much it costs them. To shed light on this question, we asked participants in the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations about their experience with and knowledge of their banks’ overdraft programs. The large majority knew how often they overdrew their account and by how much. Their overdraft experience, we find, begets knowledge; of respondents who overdrew their account in the previous year, 84 percent knew the fee they were charged, roughly twice the share for other respondents. However, even experienced overdrafters were relatively unaware of other overdraft terms and practices, such as the maximum overdraft allowed or whether their financial institution processed larger transactions first.