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Join the SURF community to receive quarterly information about upcoming SURF sponsored events. You can also contact us at SYS.SURF@phil.frb.org. We welcome your interest and feedback.

SURF Newsletters

View previous spotlights and briefs.

Events

We sponsor seminars, panels, workshops, and conferences in consumer finance, financial innovations, digitalization, payments, financial climate risks, and, more broadly, supervision and financial stability.

Forthcoming events:

The Philadelphia Fed will organize its Ninth Annual Fintech Conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on November 12–13, 2025 (hybrid event). Over the years, the goal of this conference series has been to provide a platform for fintech experts to discuss various emerging issues around financial technology, their impact, and the appropriate policy responses. Recordings from prior editions of this conference are also available. Registration for this event it will be announced at a later date across multiple outlets.

Recordings from past SURF sponsored events are available at the SURF YouTube channel.

Additional future events of interest to the SURF community and sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia include:

The Consumer Finance Institute and the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia invite you to save the date for the 13th biennial New Perspectives on Consumer Behavior in Credit and Payments Markets Conference, to be held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on November 6 and 7, 2025.  Stay tuned for more details and a formal call for papers. If you have questions, please contact the conference organizers at PHIL.New.Perspectives@phil.frb.org.

For additional events sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, please visit the upcoming events calendar page.

Additionally, our partner agencies sponsor a variety of events of interest to the regulatory community. 

FDIC Bank Research Conference – This annual conference, organized by the FDIC Center for Financial Research, serves as a platform to discuss innovative research on bank-related topics.

FDIC Consumer Research Symposium – Hosted by the FDIC Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection, this event focuses on consumer finance and financial inclusion topics, bringing together academics, regulators, and practitioners.

For a comprehensive list of events from the FDIC, visit the FDIC events page.

The Supervisory Policy Forum (SURF) in collaboration with our interagency partners organizes a SURF interagency seminar series open to supervisory agency staff only. Future scheduled presentations include:

  • “Consumer Protection? Predatory Loan Laws and Household Credit and Spending.” Lee Seltzer, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. February, 2025.
  • “Taxing the Collector.” Scott Nelson, Chicago Booth School of Business. April, 2025.

Recent Research from the SURF Network

The SURF community is actively involved in advancing the frontier of knowledge in risk management, financial institutions, and financial markets. Here we highlight some of the most recent research and policy work.

Inside the Boardroom: Evidence from the Board Structure and Meeting Minutes of Community Banks, FDIC Center for Financial Research Working Paper No. 2024-04  – Rosalind L. Bennett, Manju Puri, and Paul E. Soto

CEO Ownership, Risk Management, and Bank Runs at Unlimited Liability Banks During the 1890s, FDIC Center for Financial Research Working Paper No. 2024-03 – Haelim Anderson, Jaewon Choi and Jennifer Rhee

Deposit Insurance and Bank Funding Stability: Evidence from the TAG Program, FDIC Center for Financial Research Working Paper No. 2024-02 – Ajay Palvia, George Shoukry and Anna-Leigh Stone 

Explaining the Life Cycle of Bank-Sponsored Money Market Funds: An Application of the Regulatory Dialectic, FDIC Center for Financial Research Working Paper No. 2024-01 – Stefan Jacewitz, Jonathan Pogach, Haluk Unal and Chengjun Wu

For a comprehensive list of FDIC working papers, visit the FDIC 2024 working papers web page.

Federal Reserve of Philadelphia Recent Featured Research:

Here is some recent research of particular interest to the SURF community.

A working paper by Canals-Cerda and Jonghwan Lee “Who Provides Credit in Times of Crisis? Evidence from the Auto Loan Market” examines the contribution of different lending channels to the auto loan market in times of crisis. Specifically, the research explores lending from traditional banks, credit unions, and finance companies (nonbanks) over the past two decades, with an emphasis on the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic.

A working paper by Calem, Henderson and Wang “Who Remains Unbanked in the United States and Why?” conducts a detailed exploration of the factors associated with unbanked status among U.S. households and how these relationships evolved between 2015 and 2019.

A working paper by Amornsiripanitch, Biswas, Orellana & Zink “Flood Underinsurance” using data on expected flood damage and National Flood Insurance Program policies, the authors estimate annual flood risk protection gaps and underinsurance among single-family residences in the contiguous United States.

A working paper by Berger, Ortega, Ossandon Busch & Roman “Banking on Deforestation: The Cost of Nonenforcement” highlights the fact that despite surging environmental laws, how their enforcement influences banks’ management of climate risks remains underexplored.

A working paper by Meursault, Moulton, Santucci & Schor “One Threshold Doesn’t Fit All: Tailoring Machine Learning Predictions of Consumer Default for Lower-Income Areas” highlights the fact that improving fairness across policy domains often comes at a cost. However, as machine learning (ML) advances lead to more accurate predictive models in fields like lending, education, healthcare, and criminal justice, policymakers may find themselves better positioned to implement effective fairness measures.

A working paper by Monarrez & Turner “The Effect of Student Loan Payment Burdens and Nonfinancial Frictions on Borrower Outcomes” Rising student loan debt and concerns over unaffordable payments provide rationale for “income-driven repayment” (IDR) plans, which aim to protect borrowers from default and resulting financial consequences by linking payments to income.

View prior highlighted research.

Contact us if you would like to propose research to be highlighted in the SURF webpage.