Treball de Fi de Grau en Economia. Curs 2013-2014

Tutor: Gert Cornelisen

Payment methods have been proven to affect spending behavior. More precisely, when/nindividuals use credit cards tend to overspend and to underestimate their past expenses. However, there is little research about the role that the additional services provided by financial institution have in shaping consumption patterns. This paper analyze how one of these services –the text message that banks send to their clients each time they make a payment using a credit card– affects spending control. A review of the previous literature is considered, and an experiment is hold to show support for the proposed theoretical framework. Our findings suggest that the information stated in these SMS are a source of variance in the overall expenses.