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The practice of marketing credit cards on college campuses is becoming increasingly controversial. Critics have charged that credit card companies use unethical practices to encourage students to become overloaded with debt. In response, many colleges now ban credit card solicitors from campus. Perhaps the best way credit card companies can improve their image is to provide specific educational opportunities to students when they fill out credit applications. Includes an empirical study of the debt issues of college students. Results indicate that students can learn specific types of information that should improve their ability to manage their debt. This information includes issues associated with the frequency of use of credit cards, the payment of credit card debt, and the number of credit cards held. Makes specific educational recommendations that should be helpful to companies that currently market credit cards to college students. Results may also provide planning information to banks and credit card companies in parts of the world where credit card usage by college students is not yet widespread, but is likely to increase due to developing free market systems and the increased use of credit worldwide.

Given the proliferation of the credit card industry in today’s US households, and the aggressive promotional tactics employed to get college students to sign on as customers, this exploratory study takes a look at the credit card activity of college students at one Midwestern campus. The majority of students surveyed did not report knowledge of their credit card interest rate, although approximately half did report knowing their credit balance and credit limit. Students appear to have a realistic attitude toward the use of credit cards.

This research seeks to explore current attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to student credit and debt consumption in the UK and Ireland.

Key qualitative consumer research based on 20 interviews with Irish and UK higher education students is presented.

The findings highlight that, while the UK and Irish student contexts are significantly different in terms of accommodation costs, tuition fees and living expenses, many Irish students reported relatively high debt levels, with some exceeding their UK counterparts. The research identifies key contextual factors associated with the credit‐friendly environment in which students live in addition to shedding light on student orientation towards credit and debt, with specific conclusions for future student debt.

Given the rise in debt and its detrimental consequences, the study has far‐reaching implications for policy makers, consumer agencies financial providers and marketers in terms of creating an environment where good student financial capability and management is developed and facilitated through increased financial education and regulation. The research has implications for other western countries in terms of predicting comparative trends in student credit and debt attitude and behaviour.

This paper addresses the lack of analytical and academic commentary exploring the dynamics and nature of student credit and debt, particularly within an Irish context, in addition to providing a cross‐cultural comparison between credit and debt consumption in Ireland, where debt is a relatively new phenomenon, and the UK, a country well‐entrenched in debt.

By applying the information-motivation-behavioral (IMB) skills model, the purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect effects of credit card knowledge and social motivation on credit card misuse behavior mediated through credit card self-efficacy among college students in the USA.

A sample of 427 participants was surveyed. Structural equation modeling was used to assess the hypothesized model.

Credit card knowledge and social motivation were inversely associated with credit card misuse mediated through credit card self-efficacy. Credit card knowledge had a direct negative relationship with credit card misuse. The results confirm the theoretical relationships in the IMB model.

The results offer several implications for bank marketers and policy makers. The IMB model could be used to predict credit card abuse among college students; credit card literacy programs should incorporate strategies that can enhance students’ knowledge, social motivation, and behavioral skills with regard to responsible use of credit cards.

This study is unique in that it applies the IMB model to examine predictors of credit card misuse among college students.

The importance of and viability of the college student cohort for credit card firms and banks are well documented and so are the challenges facing marketers interested in this target market. The first purpose of this paper is to examine college students’ motivation for consuming credit cards and the usefulness of the latter to them. The second purpose relies on marketing scholars’ advice by replicating and then validating an extant scale that measures college students’ decision criteria for credit cards. Specifically, the paper attempts to answer two questions: what is the compelling reason for a college student to want to own and use a credit card? In addition, how important is the credit card to the college student?

The authors adopted the classical multi‐step scale development procedure, which demands that thorough attention is paid to every step of the process. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the reliability and validity of the results.

This study has replicated and validated an extant scale measuring college students’ consumption of credit cards. The findings confirm four key factors: “customer service;” “incentives;” “need for credit;” and “buying power.” In addition, 66 per cent of the respondents claim that credit cards provide a sense of security for them. Furthermore, while 49 per cent of the sample uses their cards up to three purchases monthly, 51 per cent use their cards more than four times in a month. Moreover, 25 per cent of the respondents regularly use their cards (i.e. more than seven purchases or more per month).

The cross‐sectional research basis and convenience samples are weaknesses of this study, as they pose generalizability questions. Although the study is consistent with the literature and directions from academic and practitioner experts, the authors acknowledge the lack of (true experimental) control over the identified factors.

Credit card marketers and bank managers may assess the dimensions in this study and adapt them as the basis for marketing and positioning strategies, marketing communication tactics, and brand management, particularly within the college student and the youth target markets. This can lead to the basis upon which credit card policies, i.e. college students’ compulsive buying habits, college students’ credit card debt, and banks’ marketing activities may be proposed.

The paper proposes a rigorously validated scale that reflects both psychometric and parsimonious measures dealing with college students’ consumption of credit cards. In view of the scarce stream of empirical studies dealing with college students’ consumption of credit cards, this paper comes at an opportune time as scholars continue to debate and research about college students’ credit card debt and credit card firms’ ethical practices on college campuses. Moreover, the paper supports the importance of generalizability of findings and replication studies.

In the USA, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) has adopted a final rule amending the Truth in Lending Act's Regulation Z, effective October 1, 2001. The present study aims to use the elaboration likelihood model to explore how consumers might respond to the revised credit card disclosure requirements, focusing specifically on college students.

Each subject was randomly assigned to one of two financial scenarios and asked to choose, among competing offers, the credit card that presented the “best” match to the scenario. Subsequently, all subjects completed measures designed to test hypothesized relationships within the framework of the elaboration likelihood model.

College students possess a fairly low level of knowledge of credit cards and thus are not very well equipped to make educated choices concerning such cards.

The use of a rural student sample is a limitation and future research should investigate different populations, including those in urban and international markets.

Since the variable APR information appears to distract consumers from taking into account other important cost information, credit card issuers should develop solicitations that aid consumers in making knowledgeable choices.

The present research is the first to investigate the impact of the FRB's recently adopted final rule amending the Truth in Lending Act's Regulation Z. The findings should thus be of interest to regulators, credit card issuers, and consumer advocates.

The concept of “buy now pay later” leads Malaysian Generation Y (Gen Y) to excessively use their credit cards for spending. To gauge the extent of this worrisome scenario, the purpose of this paper is to attempt to investigate the factors, including credit attitudes, knowledge on credit card, materialism, social norm and self-efficacy, that influence credit card misuse amongst Gen Y in Malaysia.

The authors have collected responses from a total of 501 respondents in two urban areas in Malaysia and estimated six multiple regression models to test five hypotheses.

The results suggest that credit card knowledge and self-efficacy are negatively related to credit card misuse amongst Gen Y in Malaysia. In contrast, positive relationships were found to exist between credit card attitudes, materialism and social norm and the dependent variable.

In this study, the authors limit the data collection to the two biggest urban areas in Malaysia, namely, Klang Valley and Ipoh.

For the regulator’s perspective, the results can be used to understand the alarming indebtedness behaviour amongst working members of Gen Y and outline appropriate and effective policies to reduce their serious indebtedness. Financial service providers, however, can collaborate with regulators to curb credit card misuse amongst Gen Y, so that the latter can avoid high bad debt from line of credit facilities and bankruptcy.

The study’s findings will further enrich the existing literature on the factors affecting the credit card misuse, especially for the unique Gen Y cohort in Malaysia.

The Federal Reserve Board has recently adopted a final rule amending the Truth in Lending Act's Regulation Z, effective October 1, 2001. The first study investigates how vulnerable consumers (i.e. college students) might respond to the revised credit card disclosure requirements and investigates credit card knowledge of college students. The second and third studies examine external validity issues, that is, whether urban college students are more knowledgeable about credit cards than rural students, and whether adult populations are more knowledgeable than student populations. These latter studies further investigate the relationships among objective knowledge, subjective knowledge and product usage. The results show that consumers in general are not very knowledgeable about credit cards. In order to avoid government regulation of the industry, it is recommended that credit card issuers become involved in educating consumers.

Prior research suggests that payment mechanisms are imbued with cues that affect purchase evaluation and future spending behavior. Credit cards are distinguished from other payment mechanisms as they elicit greater willingness to spend, prompt weaker recollections of past credit expenses and overvaluation of available funds – a phenomena the authors call as “credit card effect.” Little is known about the individuals’ differential exposure to the credit card effect. The purpose of this paper is to present a new concept and measure of susceptibility to the credit card misuse and indebtedness (SCCMI).

The study focussed on young credit card users (aged 18-25) from Malaysia, Singapore, and the UK as they represent varying levels of credit card issuance and consumer protection regulations. The authors conducted confirmatory factor analysis and invariance tests to assess the validity, reliability and parsimony of the proposed scale in the three countries. Further, the authors examined the prediction power of SCCMI on consumer tendency to become a revolving credit card debtor.

Results show that the SCCMI scale is valid, reliable and parsimonious across the multi-country context. The paper provided additional validity support through known-group comparison among various payers of credit card bills.

The convenience sampling used for the study is the main limitation. The findings bear important implications for more socially responsible marketing practice and better public policies in credit carder regulation for protecting young credit card users.

The new concept and measurement scale can be used for identifying the vulnerable individuals in credit card use, assisting consumer knowledge training, improving policies for credit card regulation, and helping credit card providers in socially responsible marketing practice.

The cross-country validity of the SCCMI scale provides a unique contribution for monitoring and auditing consumer vulnerability in credit card misuse in Asian and European market conditions.

SCCMI offers an original concept that is distinct from previous research in that SCCMI focusses solely on the state of likelihood to commit credit card abuse rather than the behavioral manifestations of credit card misuse. SCCMI provides a new tool for marketers and public policy makers for ethically responsible credit card marketing and regulation to protect youths’ benefits.

The money management behaviour of undergraduates is a noteworthy study for many stakeholders, as these students are more likely to carry forward this behaviour into later life. The literature on student money management behaviour heavily focuses on financial literacy. However, economic, social and psychological factors also affect undergraduates’ money management behaviour. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to empirically investigate how undergraduates respond to and account for these factors in their money management behaviour.

This study was carried out in Australia. This study adopted a qualitative exploratory approach. The data were collected using six focus group discussions (FGDs) held in one Australian university, in which 40 undergraduates participated.

The key themes identified from the thematic analysis include undergraduates’ understanding of money management and managing economic, social and psychological aspects relating to undergraduates’ money management behaviour. Several subthemes were identified under each theme, which specifically showed how undergraduates manage and respond to each of these factors relating to their money management behaviour.

This study was conducted with the data collected from a relatively small sample of respondents and was limited only to undergraduates. Moreover, this study was conducted in Australia, indicating that some of the results might be specific to the Australian context.

The authors have suggested promoting multiple payment methods and internet usage to undergraduates, and providing them with stress management programmes will help them maintain prudent money management behaviour.

The extant literature on undergraduates’ money management behaviour tends to focus on financial literacy. This study extends the scope of the literature beyond financial literacy and has shown how undergraduates respond to economic, social and psychological aspects relating to money management behaviour. This study has applied a qualitative exploratory approach, in contrast to quantitative methods which have generally been applied for studies relating to undergraduates’ money management behaviour.