Penalty Fees Drop Again
Penalty fees paid by consumers last year took another dip. After rising predictably year/year for most of the last decade, 2010 saw the first penalty fee decline, down from $23.9B to $22.5B, with 2011 showing a further drop to $19.4B, 2012 dropping again to $17.8 B, and in 2013 falling to $12.0 B, according to the R.K. Hammer Card Penalty Fee Index, the lowest level since Hammer began tracking such fee trends. This is the fourth in their weekly series of seven year-end card trend papers, each one covering a different financial, marketing or operational card metric.
