Consumer Finance: Markets, Product Design, and FinTech

Lecture Notes

Ses #	Topics	Lecture Notes
1	Introduction and overview of consumer financial markets Why take this class? Requirements Substantive plan of the course Overview of consumer finance	Lecture 1: Introduction (PDF - 1.2MB)
2	How people should behave: economic models of household financial behavior Underlying assumptions: diminishing marginal utility, knowledge, optimization, the effects of risk, risk aversion and portfolio choice Central implications: consumption smoothing, CCAPM Financial advising, robo-advising	Lecture 2: Rational model (PDF - 2.1MB)
3	How people do behave: behavioral biases, financial decisions, and markets Underlying evidence: experiments, biology, psychology, evolution Central assumption: mistakes Regulation vs. competition for rents Profiting from mistakes vs. selling correcting products	Lecture 3: Behavioral models (PDF)
4	Financial coaching and behavioral economics Guest lecture: Katy Davis (Managing Director, ideas42)	No notes Related white paper: The Financial Health Check: Scalable Solutions for Financial Resilience (PDF - 4MB)
5	Selling personal financial advice Opportunities and challenges for HelloWallet Navigating market forces How to allocate resources to consumer vs. employer markets	Lecture 5: HelloWallet (PDF)
6	Risk-based pricing in consumer credit: credit cards and regulation Overview of credit card market Market analysis and the failure of Citi “A deal is a deal” campaign Credit market collapses	Lecture 6: Credit card markets (PDF - 1.7MB)
7	Consumer insurance markets Fundamental problems of customers How households manage risks The insurance problem	Lecture 7: BASIX Insurance (PDF)
8	Peer to peer lending Overview and origin of the idea Lending Club Federal Securities Laws and implications Evolution of peer-to-peer lending	Lecture 8: Lending Club (PDF)
9	Securities backed by consumer debts Guest lecture: Joseph Naggar (Partner, GoldenTree Asset Management) Tour of securitized products and ABS (credit cards, autos, student loans, personal loans, esoteric), CMBS, RMBS, and CLOs The size of the market, the participants, and importance How the market works: creation, distribution, liquidity What happened during the crisis and what the future holds	No notes
10	Fintech lending in China Guest lecture: Chen Long (Chief Strategy Officer, Ant Financial (formerly Alipay))	No notes
11	Fintech: Bitcoin and payment technologies overview and discussion The economics and finance of money and transactions Are cryptocurrencies the future? Blockchain and public ledgers	Lecture 11: Bitcoin and payments (PDF - 2.1MB)