This is What's in Your Wallet... And How You Use It

Tamas Briglevics, Scott Schuh
2014 Social Science Research Network  
Retail payments at a crossroads: economics, strategies and future policies This paper was submitted and accepted for the bi-annual retail payments conference titled "Retail payments at a crossroads: economics, strategies and future policies" organised by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Banque de France (BdF), on 21 and 22 October 2013 in Paris. The aim of the conference was to bring together academics, regulators and market participants to discuss possible developments and dynamics that
more » ... will shape the future retail payments landscape. Retail payments provide a very important, yet not the most visible, infrastructure for the operation of the real economy. The way economic actors pay is not only important from a theoretical point of view but also from a policy perspective as the costs for providing payment services are substantial in most countries. As we are witnessing a transformation in these markets from traditional paper-based payment instruments towards electronic means of payments, the interaction between market forces and regulatory initiatives continues to be a determining factor for the future. This interaction, and the possible policy conclusions stemming from it, was the main theme of this conference. The selection and refereeing process of this paper has been carried out by the conference organisational team composed of experts from both organising institutions. As the conference was organised with a focus on the key issues above, papers were selected not only based on their standalone quality but also considering the relevance of the research subject to the themes of the event. Following the conference the selected papers have been asked to be revised according to the discussants assigned to the respective paper. The paper is released in order to make the working papers and accompanying research submitted to the conference publicly available. All working papers submitted to the conference can be found at http://www.ecb.europa.eu/events/conferences/html/131021_ecb_bdf.en.html. Acknowledgements The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston or the Federal Reserve System. We thank Marc Rysman for his continuous support throughout the project, Randall Wright, Santiago Carbo-Valverde and participants at the Boston Fed Department Seminar, the ECB-BdF Retail Payments at a Crossroads Conference and the Bank of Canada for helpful comments and suggestions.
doi:10.2139/ssrn.2431322 fatcat:gcs46zg33zfundcx2kf2q4lmi4