What the Fed Didn’t Do

This is a red-letter day, no question about it.  The Fed gave us opt-in, which means that new and existing account holders have to sign up for overdraft protection rather than be automatically enrolled when they open an account.  But the fight is far from over.  As Eric Halperin of the Center For Responsidle Lending, an interviewee in “Overdrawn!”, said:

“We appreciate that the Fed chose to implement the strongest overdraft reform rule it was considering, namely requiring banks and credit unions to ask new and existing customers before charging overdraft fees on debit card transactions. But this improvement is undermined by the Fed’s failure to propose or enact necessary safeguards against a host of unfair practices.”