The second variation also made no reference to the Prophet and the religious text from which the quote was taken, but used the Arabic term for “injustice.” This _implicit moral incentives_ condition was also assigned to 336 customers on the last month of the intervention.

The first of these additional messages allows us to test whether simply receiving a moral statement without religious connotation affects repayment decisions. The second message tests to what extent a credible religious source increases the effect of a moral appeal.

# **2.3.3 Financial Incentives: Cash Rebate**

To benchmark the effect of moral appeals against explicit monetary incentives, we implemented two different treatments. The first one consisted of a direct financial benefit in the form of a cash rebate. In this _cash rebate incentive_ condition, the bank sent the standard reminder on the due date and then notified customers about the possibility to obtain a substantial cash rebate. To qualify for this rebate, equal to 50% of their minimum payment or 5% of their total outstanding balance, customers had to make the minimum payment by the deadline. The rebate would then be credited to their account in the next billing cycle.<sup>27</sup> This message, assigned to 336 participants on the last month of the study, reads as follows: _This month, make your credit card payment to get a cash rebate equal to 50% of your minimum payment on your next statement. Please repay your card balance at your earliest convenience. Call [customer service number]._

# **2.3.4 Reputational Incentives**

The second benchmark consisted of indirect financial benefits through the ability to obtain credit in the future. In this _credit reputation incentives_ condition, customers received the standard reminder on the due date and an additional message two days before the repayment deadline. This message states that non-repayment will result in the customer being reported to the Indonesian credit registry, the _Sistem Informasi Debitur_ (SID), which all banks check before issuing credit and highlights that this will diminish the customer’s access to credit in the future. More specifically, the message, assigned to 2,000 customers, reads as follows:<sup>28</sup> _Late payments are reported monthly to Bank Indonesia Sistem Informasi Debitur (SID), which all banks consult. This will diminish your ability to get credit in the future. Please repay your card balance at your earliest convenience. Call [customer service number]._

> 27We worked with the bank to design a rebate that consumers would understand based on their previous experience. In general, clients in our sample are very familiar with the concept and functioning of cash rebates.

> 28We designed two variations of this text message and randomly assigned 1,000 customers to each of two subgroups. The first subgroup received the message in the main text. The second group received a text that says “ _Late payments are reported monthly to Bank Indonesia Sistem Informasi Debitur (SID), which all banks can consult. Please repay your card balance at your earliest convenience. Call [customer service number]._ ” We pool these two treatments in our analysis since their effect on repayment is not statistically different.

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