IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/annfin/v9y2013i1p5-25.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing of payment cards, competition, and efficiency: a possible guide for SEPA

Author

Listed:
  • Wilko Bolt
  • Heiko Schmiedel

Abstract

This paper analyzes equilibrium pricing of payment cards and welfare consequences of payment card competition. In particular, we model competition between debit and credit cards. The paper argues that optimal consumer and merchant fees must take safety, income uncertainty, default risk, and the merchant’s handling cost of cash into account. Market segmentation where debit and credit cards serve different merchant segments yields a preferred “payment mix”. However, when markets are segmented, payment card fees do not necessarily reach their socially efficient levels. Hence, thoughtful regulatory intervention regarding merchant fees may still be necessary to raise total surplus. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Wilko Bolt & Heiko Schmiedel, 2013. "Pricing of payment cards, competition, and efficiency: a possible guide for SEPA," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 5-25, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:annfin:v:9:y:2013:i:1:p:5-25
    DOI: 10.1007/s10436-011-0177-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10436-011-0177-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10436-011-0177-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Graeme Guthrie & Julian Wright, 2007. "Competing Payment Schemes," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 37-67, March.
    2. repec:bla:jindec:v:50:y:2002:i:2:p:103-22 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Chakravorti Sujit & Roson Roberto, 2006. "Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets: The Case of Payment Networks," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-25, March.
    6. Wright, Julian, 2003. "Optimal card payment systems," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 587-612, August.
    7. Fernando Alvarez & Francesco Lippi, 2009. "Financial Innovation and the Transactions Demand for Cash," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 363-402, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael L. Katz, 2006. "Your network or mine? The economics of routing rules," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 692-719, September.
    10. Falko Fecht & Antoine Martin, 2009. "Banks, markets, and efficiency," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 131-160, March.
    11. 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.
    12. Benjamin Hermalin & Michael L. Katz, 2006. "Your Network or Mine? The Economics of Routing Rules," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 692-719, Autumn.
    13. Wilko Bolt & Sujit Chakravorti, 2008. "Consumer choice and merchant acceptance of payment media," Working Paper Series WP-08-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    14. Wilko Bolt & Sujit Chakravorti, 2008. "Consumer choice and merchant acceptance of payment media," Working Paper Series WP-08-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    15. Mark Armstrong Author-Email: mark.armstrong@ucl.ac.uk Author-Workplace-Name: University College of London, 2006. "Competition in Two-Sided Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, Autumn.
    16. Richard Schmalensee, 2002. "Payment Systems and Interchange Fees," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 103-122, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ardizzi, Guerino, 2013. "Card versus cash: empirical evidence of the impact of payment card interchange fees on end users’ choice of payment methods," MPRA Paper 48088, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 May 2013.
    2. Bolt, Wilko & Humphrey, David, 2013. "Competition in bank-provided payment services," Working Paper Series 1539, European Central Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wilko Bolt & Sujit Chakravorti, 2010. "Digitization of Retail Payment," DNB Working Papers 270, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    2. Bolt, Wilko & Schmiedel, Heiko, 2009. "SEPA, efficiency, and payment card competition," Working Paper Series 1140, European Central Bank.
    3. Ron Borzekowski & Elizabeth K. Kiser & Mark D. Manuszak & Robin A. Prager, 2009. "Interchange fees and payment card networks: economics, industry developments, and policy issues," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2009-23, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Schmiedel, Heiko & Bolt, Wilko & Foote, Elizabeth, 2011. "Consumer credit and payment cards," Working Paper Series 1387, European Central Bank.
    5. Economides, Nicholas & Henriques, David, 2011. "To surcharge or not to surcharge? A two-sided market perspective of the no-surchage rule," Working Paper Series 1388, European Central Bank.
    6. Zhu Wang, 2013. "Demand externalitites and price cap regulation: Learning from a two-sided market," Working Paper 13-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    7. Rochet, Jean-Charles & Wright, Julian, 2010. "Credit card interchange fees," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1788-1797, August.
    8. Wang, Zhu, 2016. "Price cap regulation in a two-sided market: Intended and unintended consequences," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 28-37.
    9. Wilko Bolt & Sujit Chakravorti, 2008. "Economics of payment cards: a status report," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 32(Q IV), pages 15-27.
    10. Schmiedel, Heiko & Bolt, Wilko & Foote, Elizabeth, 2011. "Consumer credit and payment cards," Working Paper Series 1387, European Central Bank.
    11. Verdier, Marianne, 2012. "Interchange fees and inefficiencies in the substitution between debit cards and cash," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 682-696.
    12. Rochet, Jean Charles & Tirole, Jean, 2008. "Tying in two-sided markets and the honor all cards rule," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1333-1347, November.
    13. James J. McAndrews & Zhu Wang, 2008. "The economics of two-sided payment card markets: pricing, adoption and usage," Research Working Paper RWP 08-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    14. Fumiko Hayashi, 2008. "The economics of payment card fee structure: what is the optimal balance between merchant fee and payment card rewards?," Research Working Paper RWP 08-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    15. Graeme Guthrie & Julian Wright, 2007. "Competing Payment Schemes," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 37-67, March.
    16. Julian Wright, 2012. "Why payment card fees are biased against retailers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(4), pages 761-780, December.
    17. Santiago Carbó-Valverde & Sujit Chakravorti & Francisco Rodríguez-Fernández, 2009. "Regulating two-sided markets: an empirical investigation," Working Paper Series WP-09-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    18. Verdier, Marianne, 2010. "Interchange fees and incentives to invest in payment card systems," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 539-554, September.
    19. Fumiko Hayashi & Stuart E. Weiner, 2005. "Competition and credit and debit card interchange fees: a cross-country analysis," Payments System Research Working Paper PSR WP 05-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    20. Wilko Bolt, 2012. "Retail Payment Systems: Competition, Innovation, and Implications," DNB Working Papers 362, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Payment card competition; Equilibrium pricing; Economic efficiency; L11; G21; D53;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • D53 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Financial Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:annfin:v:9:y:2013:i:1:p:5-25. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.