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Report
Defining Households That Are Underserved in Digital Payment Services
US households that lack digital means of making and receiving payments cannot participate fully in an increasingly digitized economy. Assessing the scope of this problem and addressing it requires a definition of households that are underserved in digital payments. Traditional definitions of households underserved in the banking system—those that are unbanked and those that are underbanked—do not account for the ownership of nonbank transaction accounts that can be used to make and receive digital payments. In this paper, we define households underserved in digital payments by considering ...
Report
Faster payments: market structure and policy considerations
The U.S. payments industry is in the process of developing ubiquitous, safe, faster electronic solutions for making a broad variety of business and personal payments. How this market for faster payments will evolve will be shaped by a range of economic forces, such as economies of scale and scope, network effects, switching costs, and product differentiation. Emerging technologies could alter these forces and lead to new organizational arrangements or market structures that are different from those in legacy payment markets to date. In light of this uncertainty, this paper examines three ...
Discussion Paper
Effects of credit scores on consumer payment choice
This paper investigates the effects of credit scores on consumer payment behavior, especially on debit and credit card use. Anecdotally, a negative relationship between debit card use and credit score has been reported; however, it is not clear whether that relationship is related to other factors, such as education or income, or whether it is a mere correlation. We use a new consumer survey dataset to examine whether this negative relationship holds after controlling for various consumer characteristics, including demographic and financial characteristics, consumers' perceptions toward ...
Working Paper
Distributional Effects of Payment Card Pricing and Merchant Cost Pass-through in the United States and Canada
Using data from the United States and Canada, we quantify consumers’ net pecuniary cost of using cash, credit cards, and debit cards for purchases across income cohorts. The net cost includes fees paid to financial institutions, rewards received from credit or debit card issuers, and the merchant cost of accepting payments that is passed on to consumers as higher retail prices. Even though credit cards are more expensive for merchants to accept compared with other payment methods, merchants typically do not differentiate prices at checkout, but instead pass through their costs to all ...
Working Paper
Defining Households That Are Underserved in Digital Payment Services
US households that lack digital means of making and receiving payments cannot participate fully in an increasingly digitized economy. Assessing the scope of this problem and addressing it requires a definition of households that are underserved in digital payments. Traditional definitions of households underserved in the banking system—those that are unbanked and those that are underbanked—do not account for the ownership of nonbank transaction accounts that can be used to make and receive digital payments. In this paper, we define households underserved in digital payments by considering ...
Working Paper
Faster Payments : Market Structure and Policy Considerations
The U.S. payments industry is in the process of developing ubiquitous, safe, faster electronic solutions for making a broad variety of business and personal payments. How this market for faster payments will evolve will be shaped by a range of economic forces, such as economies of scale and scope, network effects, switching costs, and product differentiation. Emerging technologies could alter these forces and lead to new organizational arrangements or market structures that are different from those in legacy payment markets to date. In light of this uncertainty, this paper examines three ...
Journal Article
Financial Constraints Among Buy Now, Pay Later Users
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) services have become increasingly popular in the United States over the past decade, especially among both younger and financially vulnerable consumers. Although BNPL services may help some consumers manage financial constraints by breaking down purchases into smaller installments and providing access to interest-free credit, the smaller, interest-free installments may also lead some consumers to perceive purchases as more affordable than they really are, increasing the risk of overspending, debt accumulation, and even default.Fumiko Hayashi and Aditi Routh examine ...
Journal Article
Mobile payments: What’s in it for consumers?
Mobile payments?those initiated on a mobile device such as a cell phone or tablet computer?have received a significant amount of attention recently but still have not been widely adopted in the United States. ; Hayashi examines the barriers that have limited the takeoff of mobile payments in the United States. The article also draws on consumer payments research to assess which attributes of mobile payments might encourage or discourage adoption by U.S. consumers. ; The article concludes that greater convenience and enhanced ability to monitor account balances are likely to encourage consumer ...
Journal Article
The new debit card regulations: effects on merchants, consumers, and payments system efficiency
Public authorities recently intervened in the U.S. payment card industry to address tensions over the growing fees charged to merchants for processing debit card transactions. In this second article of Hayashi's two-part series, the author reviews how regulatory changes have affected merchants, consumers and the overall efficiency of the nation's payments system. ; She finds that competition among card networks for merchants has risen, and the fees imposed on merchants have declined, on average. However, it is too soon to know whether consumers will reap benefit and whether the efficiency of ...
Journal Article
Access to Electronic Payments Systems by Unbanked Consumers
Fumiko Hayashi identifies electronic payment products that can mitigate unbanked consumers? problems with the banking system.