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Working Paper
Nonbanks and risk in retail payments
This paper documents the importance of nonbanks in retail payments in the United States and in 15 European countries and analyzes the implications of the importance and multiple roles played by nonbanks on retail payment risks. This paper also reviews the main regulatory safeguards in place, and concludes that there may be a need to reconsider some of them in view of the growing role of nonbanks and of the global reach of risks in the electronic era.
Working Paper
Payment card rewards programs and consumer payment choice
Card payments have been growing very rapidly. To continue the growth, payment card networks keep adding new merchants and card issuers try to stimulate their existing customers? card usage by providing rewards. This paper seeks to analyze the effects of payment card rewards programs on consumer payment choice, by using consumer survey data. Specifically, we examine whether credit/debit reward receivers use credit/debit cards relatively more often than other consumers, if so how much more often, and which payment methods are replaced by reward card payments. Our results suggest that (i) ...
Working Paper
Technological innovation and market turbulence: the dot-com experience
This paper explains market turbulence, such as the recent dotcom boom/bust cycle, as equilibrium industry dynamics triggered by technology innovation. When a major technology innovation arrives, a wave of new firms enter the market implementing the innovation for profits. However, if the innovation complements existing technology, some new entrants will later be forced out as more and more incumbent firms succeed in adopting the innovation. It is shown that the diffusion of Internet technology among traditional brick-and-mortar firms is indeed the driving force behind the rise and fall of ...
Working Paper
Microfoundations of two-sided markets: the payment card example
This paper provides a theory of two-sided market dynamics with arguably better microfoundations. These alternative microfoundations focus on observable heterogeneities of both sides of the market in a competitive framework. The theory is rich in empirical predictions and is less dependent on a particular form of imperfect competition than other approaches. Our findings in the payment card example point to adoption costs and the distribution of consumer incomes and firm sizes as the key determinants of the shares of costs borne by each side. This result provides clear implications for industry ...
Working Paper
Nonbanks in the payments system: European and U.S. perspectives
This paper presents the initial results of a joint study undertaken by staff at the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City to document and analyze nonbanks in the payments system. The focus is on electronic (non-paper) retail payment services in the European Union and the United States. The results show that nonbanks are making their presence felt at all stages of the payments chain. And, at this time, nonbanks appear most prominent in the United States, but are prominent in many European countries as well. And, most importantly, nonbank presence appears to be ...
Working Paper
Market structure and credit card pricing: what drives the interchange?
This paper presents a model for the credit card industry, where oligopolistic card networks price their products in a complex marketplace with competing payment instruments, rational consumers/merchants, and competitive card issuers/acquirers. The analysis suggests that card networks demand higher interchange fees to maximize card issuers' profits as card payments become more efficient. At equilibrium, consumer rewards and card transaction volume also increase, while consumer surplus and merchant profits may not. The model provides a unified framework to evaluate credit card industry ...
Working Paper
Community bank access to payment card networks : has it become more expensive?
The payment industry is undergoing significant change. Consolidations among payment networks and processors have been seen in every payment service area and technological advances provide incentives for even larger financial institutions to outsource their transaction processing. As a result, a smaller number of networks or processors are competing more vigorously for larger financial institutions. In doing so, volume-based pricing or volume discounts are commonly practiced in the industry. This paper examines whether the change in fee structure of networks and processors make community ...
Working Paper
Learning, diffusion and the industry life cycle
An industry typically experiences initial mass entry and later shakeout of producers over its life cycle. It can be explained as a competitive equilibrium outcome driven by the dynamic interaction between technology progress and demand diffusion. When a new product is introduced, high-income consumers tend to adopt it first. Technology then improves with cumulative output and demand growth generates S-shaped diffusion as the product penetrates lower-income groups. Eventually fewer new adopters are available and the number of firms starts to decline. It is shown that faster technological ...
Working Paper
Technology adoption and consumer payments : evidence from survey data
Consumers pay for hundreds of goods and services each year, but across households and across goods, consumers do not choose to pay the same way. This paper posits that these differences depend in part on consumers' propensity to adopt new technologies, and depend in part on the nature of the transaction. In order to test these hypotheses, this paper offers comparisons of payment instrument use at the point of sale and for bill payment from a sample of consumers surveyed in 2001, drawn primarily from users of the Internet. The results indicate that consumers who use technology or computers are ...
Working Paper
A puzzle of card payment pricing : why are merchants still accepting card payments?
This paper presents models that explain why merchants accept payment cards even when the fees they face exceed the transactional benefits they receive from a card transaction. Such merchant behaviors can be explained by competition among merchants and/or the effectiveness of the merchant?s card acceptance in shifting cardholders? demand for goods upward. The prevalent assumption used in payment card literature?merchants accept cards only when their transactional benefits are higher than the fees they pay?holds only for a monopoly merchant who faces an inelastic consumer demand. A card network ...