Consumer experiences with overdraft programs
May 18, 2023 / Source: CFPB
The CFPB held interviews and focus groups with low- and moderate-income consumers during the summer of 2022 to better understand their experiences with overdraft programs. For this engagement, 36 participantsā14 in individual interviews and 22 across four focus groupsāwere asked about their use of deposit accounts and debit cards, their understanding of overdraft, specific incidents they experienced resulting in being charged an overdraft or NSF fee, their perceptions of ways to avoid such fees, and other related topics. Due to the limited nature of this engagement, findings should not be considered representative of all consumers, or used for statistical analysis. However, this engagement helped the CFPB to understand how these consumers use financial products at a given point in time, and highlights some problems people face with their deposit accounts in a rapidly evolving market. Some financial institutions have reduced or even eliminated overdraft and NSF fees, while the implementation of these changes remains uneven and impermanent, and some customers may not yet see or benefit from them.