WASHINGTON—The American Bankers Association is pressing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to dump a plan to survey response to a new short-form credit card agreement and its existing long-form agreement.
The new agency is seeking to determine whether consumers are likely to read the agreement, in addition to getting insights into how well consumers understand what's being disclosed. In a letter to the CFPB, the ABA said the plan is unlikely to yield "any useful information."
The ABA said that the agency's plan would yield "little if any useful information" and noted the CFPB itself has indicated the survey won't will only provide a general response.
In late 2011, the CFPB proposed a prototype credit card agreement that included two pages of key terms, a one page summary of those terms and eight pages of definitions available online.
"We recommend that the bureau instead focus its resources on qualitative research that examines what information related to their credit card consumers believe they need and find useful and the best means of delivering that information so that consumers notice and understand that information," the ABA said in its letter. "Furthermore, we believe that the bureau's hyperbole that this particular survey should receive 'emergency' clearance because it is 'essential' to its mission should be rejected and the standard information collection process should apply."
