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Working Paper
Pricing and welfare implications of payment card network competition
This paper examines how competition among payment card networks three-party scheme networks and four-party scheme networks affects pricing as well as the welfare of various parties. A competing network has an incentive to provide rewards to its card users. By providing more generous rewards than its rival networks, the network can increase its own card transactions because multihoming cardholders who hold multiple networks cards choose to use its card instead of using its rivals. Although a monopoly network does not have such an incentive, in a monopoly four-party scheme network, competition ...
Working Paper
Chargebacks: another payment card acceptance cost for merchants
Although chargebacks are perceived as one of the major cost components for merchants to accept card payments, little research has been conducted on them. To fill that gap, this paper describes the current chargeback landscape by generating detailed statistics on chargebacks for signature-based transactions. Our data are from merchant processors, which, altogether, processed more than 20 percent of all signature-based transactions in the United States. For Visa and MasterCard transactions, chargebacks merchants receive are, on average, 1.6 basis points (bps) of sales number and 6.5 bps of ...
Briefing
Digital, Financial, and Health Insurance Exclusion Experienced by Low-Income Households
Many low-income households are excluded from essential services such as home internet access, bank accounts, and health insurance coverage. We examine to what degree low-income households experience digital, financial, and health insurance exclusion and assess whether education and race are correlated with exclusion. We find that more than 10 percent of low-income households experienced multiple types of exclusion in 2019, with more pronounced results for households with lower educational attainment.
Briefing
Data Aggregators: The Connective Tissue for Open Banking
Open banking, which allows third-party financial apps to access consumer financial data electronically andsecurely, relies on data aggregators to establish connections with consumers’ financial institutions and extract consumer data. Data aggregators are critical to enhancing consumer financial services and increasing competition—both among financial service providers and across payment methods. However, their role raises some concerns related to data security, data privacy, and competition.
Working Paper
The economics of payment card fee structure: policy considerations of payment card rewards
This paper considers possible public policies that could improve efficiency and welfare distribution in the U.S. retail payments industry. Mainly, four options, i) encouraging competition; ii) allowing merchants to surcharge; iii) regulating merchant fees; and iv) regulating payment card rewards, are discussed, but each option has advantages and disadvantages. Any single option may not achieve the policymakers' objective; rather, combining several policy options may be required. ; Also issued as a Payments System Research Working Paper.
Working Paper
Competition and credit and debit card interchange fees: a cross-country analysis
This paper seeks to provide a bridge between the theoretical and empirical literatures on interchange fees. Specifically, the paper confronts theory with practice by asking, to what extent do existing models of interchange fees match up with actual interchange fee practices in various countries? For each of four countries?Australia, the Netherlands, the UK, and the United States?models that ?best? fit the competitive and institutional features of that country?s payment card market are identified, and the implications of those model are compared to actual practices. Along what competitive ...
Journal Article
Measuring the costs of retail payment methods
In the last two decades, retail payments have experienced a dramatic shift from paper-based payment methods to electronic methods. Accurate cost information for the two types of methods would help central banks decide how hard to push for a complete transition to electronic methods and which methods to promote. ; To obtain such information, a number of central banks have recently conducted comprehensive studies of the costs of retail payment methods. Differences in the results of these studies suggest a need for each central bank to conduct its own study. ; Hayashi and Keeton, however, find ...
Working Paper
Driver of choice? the cost of financial products for unbanked consumers
This paper examines whether some of the unbanked consumers' choice of general purpose reloadable (GPR) prepaid cards over checking accounts and alternative financial service (AFS) products can be explained by the cost incurred by those consumers. We compare the three types of products by constructing consumer models based on the actual behavior of GPR prepaid cardholders and applying those models to the fee schedules of actual products offered in the market. Overdrafts are a major factor affecting the cost rankings. For consumers who regularly or occasionally overdraw their accounts, checking ...
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 ...
Journal Article
Mobile Banking Use and Consumer Readiness to Benefit from Faster Payments
The U.S. payments industry is currently implementing faster payments that will enable consumers and businesses to send and receive payments almost instantly at any time of day, any day of the year. Mobile banking in particular may allow consumers to realize the full benefits of faster payments. As a result, a consumer’s use of mobile banking is a good indicator of their readiness to benefit from faster payments.Fumiko Hayashi and Ying Lei Toh examine which consumer characteristics are associated with mobile banking use as well as what other factors may influence consumer readiness. They ...