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Who Pays for Card Payments? A General Model on the Role of Interchange Fees

Author

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  • Mariotto Carlotta

    (European Commission DG COMP – Chief Economist Team, 1210 Sint-Joost-ten-Noode, Belgium)

  • Verdier Marianne

    (CRED (TEPP), Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas and MINES ParisTech, PSL Research University, CERNA - Centre for Industrial Economics, i3, CNRS, Paris, France)

Abstract

When a consumer pays by card, the merchant’s bank pays to the consumer’s bank an interchange fee. In this article, we construct a general model of a card platform that unifies the literature on interchange fees. We enrich the existing frameworks by analyzing the choice of the interchange fee when consumer demand is elastic to retail prices. We show that the difference between the privately set structure of payment card fees and the socially optimal one depends both on banks’ and merchants’ pass-through of their costs to consumers. We argue that the maturity of the payment card market impacts the redistributive effects of interchange fees (i.e. between consumers and merchants, card and cash users) and therefore, their optimal regulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariotto Carlotta & Verdier Marianne, 2017. "Who Pays for Card Payments? A General Model on the Role of Interchange Fees," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(3), pages 307-349, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rneart:v:16:y:2017:i:3:p:307-349:n:4
    DOI: 10.1515/rne-2018-0003
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julian Wright, 2012. "Why payment card fees are biased against retailers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(4), pages 761-780, December.
    2. Creti, Anna & Verdier, Marianne, 2014. "Fraud, investments and liability regimes in payment platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 84-93.
    3. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2002. "Cooperation Among Competitors: Some Economics Of Payment Card Associations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(4), pages 549-570, Winter.
    4. Jean‐Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Two‐sided markets: a progress report," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, September.
    5. Wright, Julian, 2003. "Optimal card payment systems," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 587-612, August.
    6. Baxter, William F, 1983. "Bank Interchange of Transactional Paper: Legal and Economic Perspectives," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 541-588, October.
    7. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 990-1029, June.
    8. Wright Julian, 2010. "Why Do Merchants Accept Payment Cards?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 1-8, August.
    9. Santiago Carbó Valverde & Sujit Chakravorti & Francisco Rodríguez Fernández, 2016. "The Role of Interchange Fees in Two-Sided Markets: An Empirical Investigation on Payment Cards," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 367-381, May.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13540 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Rong Ding & Julian Wright, 2017. "Payment Card Interchange Fees and Price Discrimination," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 39-72, March.
    12. Julian Wright, 2004. "The Determinants of Optimal Interchange Fees in Payment Systems," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 1-26, March.
    13. Benjamin Edelman & Julian Wright, 2015. "Price Coherence and Excessive Intermediation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(3), pages 1283-1328.
    14. Chakravorti Sujit, 2010. "Externalities in Payment Card Networks: Theory and Evidence," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 1-28, June.
    15. Marianne Verdier, 2011. "Interchange Fees In Payment Card Systems: A Survey Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 273-297, April.
    16. Richard Schmalensee, 2002. "Payment Systems and Interchange Fees," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 103-122, June.
    17. Wang, Zhu, 2010. "Market structure and payment card pricing: What drives the interchange?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 86-98, January.
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    Cited by:

    1. Shy, Oz, 2022. "Interchange fees with cashless stores, cashless consumers, and cash-only consumers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    interchange fees; payment systems; two-sided markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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