Considering Cards with Built-In Spending Control Features

On the Credit Slips blog, in a post titled "MasterCard's Machiavellian Twist", Angie Letwin, soon to be Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Law School in Austin, writes about her recent paper titled "Beyond Usury: A Study of Credit Card Use and Preference Among Low-Income Consumers" and compares some of her conclusions about control features useful to consumers in managing their credit card use to the new features MasterCard recently introduced with its "inControl" commercial card product designed for corporate purchasing use. She hopes that "perhaps eventually this could lead to products that would help consumers control their own spending as well."