Consumer Law

Collective Bargaining with Card Issuers?

By Alan White

Happy New Year to all, and may I say, good riddance to 2008 (economically speaking that is).  Yesterday's New York Times has a good story about the relationships between credit card issuers and universities.  Banks offer kickbacks to colleges who sign students up for credit cards, and also have arrangements to link student ID cards with debit card products.  While one could simply express Puritan outrage at the academy's complicity in the consumer debt crisis, it occurs to me that there is an opportunity here.  Those of us associated with higher education institutions who also value consumer protection might consider ways in which universities could set standards for good and bad credit and debit card practices, and insist that products offered to students provide safe and sustainable financial services at fair and transparent prices.  If anyone is aware of any college or university that has already taken steps to set standards for card companies with which it deals, please comment.  

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on January 01, 2009 (boomark / email).