Some Impacts of Electronic Funds Transfer on Consumer Transactions and Discussion

The American consumer -the average depositor/borrower -is probably the most essential person to effective implementation of an electronic funds system. Yet, of the amazing quantity of literature published on EFTS in the last few years, virtually no attention has been paid to the consumer except as an abstract target of marketing studies. There are, however, serious problems in EFTS for the consumer which will have to be dealt with very soon. Some of these problems (which are to be addressed in another paper) are already being articulated in broad forms. The concern expressed is in a vocabulary of fear -fear of loss of control over personal finances, fear of lack of choice in the marketplace, and fear of increased invasion of privacy. There is an entirely different level of problems in EFTS for consumers which will be the subject of this paper. For lack of a better term, I call them transactional problems since they arise from a search for a definition of rights and responsibilities under specific transactions, i.e., direct payment orders (checking) and credit. They are considerably easier to scribe than the concern for privacy but nonetheless problems which affect consumers in the context of credit transactions today without the aggravation of electronic systems. Since many people view the present bank credit card as the embryonic form of the electronic checkbook, it seems more than a bit wise to cure these problems now, in favor of the consumer, if only to create a healthy transactional climate in which an electronic system can develop on its economic merits. To that extent the