The overall costs of the payment system to society are considerable. These costs depend on the relative usage of the available payment instruments, which differ in the costs that each entails to market participants in the payment chain. In the Netherlands, debit card payments have become less...

Since the mid-nineties, usage of the debit card by Dutch consumers has increased considerably. While accounting for three quarters of the total value of retail sales in the early nineties, in 2004 the value share of cash payments had fallen to about two quarters. If the cash to payment card...

This survey, which was conducted in September 1998, shows that the degree of acceptance of the Euro has grown to 78% among the public and 94% among businesses. Merely a quarter of the public is aware, however, of the starting year of the EMU, compared to 70% among large enterprises and 40 %...

The payment cards market is a two-sided market. Cost sensitivity of both consumers and merchants for card services influences total demand. Survey data of Dutch merchants shows that costs, and competition affect acceptance as well as surcharging decisions. Merchants who find payment cards...

A disadvantage of EMU is the lack of national monetary policy to absorb country-specific shocks. The seriousness of this depends on the availability of alternative adjustment mechanisms, as well as on the asymmetry of the demand and supply shocks within EMU. The aim of this paper is to analyse...

A disadvantage of EMU is the lack of national monetary policy to absorb country-specific shocks. The seriousness of this depends on the availability of alternative adjustment mechanisms, as well as on the asymmetry of the demand and supply shocks within EMU. Previous empirical research on the...

We develop indicators for signs of liquidity shortages and potential financial problems of banks by studying transaction data of the Dutch part of the European real time gross settlement system and collateral management data. The indicators give information on 1) overall liquidity position, 2)...

This report studies the reaction of the level and volatility of the euro-dollar exchange rate to statements of ECB officials during the first years of EMU. We focus on statements on monetary policy and the (potential) strength of the euro. We find that the Bundesbank has dominated the news...

Due to the financial crisis, an increasing number of households face financial problems. This may lead to an increasing need for monitoring spending and budgets. We demonstrate that both cash and the debit card are perceived as helpful in this respect. We show that, on average, consumers...

Over the last two decades, communication has become an increasingly importantaspect of monetary policy. These real-world developments have spawned a huge newscholarly literature on central bank communicationmostly empirical, and almost all of it written in this decade. We survey this...