The culture of borrowing and debt: an ethnographic approach

What are people’s philosophy and attitudes toward loans and debt? And how financial marketers can respond to their basic emotional needs in the lending process?

Americans have a complicated relationship with debt, one that defies easy analysis. That’s why a pair of researchers from Filene, a credit union think tank, chose to study the subject using ethnographic models.

Filene’s report, “The Culture of Borrowing and Debt: An Ethnographic Approach,” set out to tackle two overarching issues: how consumers relate to borrowing and debt, and how financial marketers can respond to those basic borrowing needs. With that in mind, Filene used the following eight questions to guide its research project:

1. What are people’s philosophy and attitudes toward money, borrowing, and debt?
2. Does the average consumer understand the loan process, from considering whether to borrow, to obtaining a loan and paying it off?
3. What is the language consumers use to discuss borrowing and loans?
4. What are the influences and influencers around borrowing and taking loans?
5. Who do consumers trust in the lending process, and what creates this trust?
6. What forms of financial education work and what doesn’t? What can be done to improve consumer understanding of the lending process?
7. How do members perceive the value of credit union membership?
8. What is the customer lending experience? What works, what doesn’t, and what needs to be changed?