Although people still use cash to pay for goods and services, the trend is toward payment cards. In the U.S., payment card networks coordinate the activities of thousands of financial institutions, millions of retail locations, and several hundred million consumers. This coordination may include...

Highways, railroads, pipelines—we see or hear about these types of physical networks almost every day. But information systems, such as the Internet, and payment systems, such as ATMs and credit cards, also involve networks. Hence, understanding the economics of networks and the unique...

This article updates the information published in an article by Loretta Mester in the March/April 2000 Business Review and last updated in the Third Quarter 2009 issue.

On September 22-23, 2011, the Research Department and the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia held their sixth joint conference to present and discuss the latest research on consumer credit and payments. Eighty-four participants attended the conference, which...

President Anthony Santomero highlights the differences between U.S. and European payments infrastructure; discusses how the roots and evolution of the U.S. payments system differs from Europe’s; and outlines the likely path of the U.S. payment system and the Fed’s role in it. In the end, he...

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Research Department and Payment Cards Center held a conference September 29-30, 2005 - the fourth in a series of conferences exploring new academic research on the topic of consumer credit and payments. Seven research papers covered topics such as the...

This article updates the tables originally published in an article by Loretta Mester in the March/April 2000 Business Review and subsequently updated in the Second Quarter 2006 issue.

In "Changes in the Use of Electronic Means of Payment: 1995-2001," Mester updates tables that first appeared in her article in the March/April 2000 Business Review. The tables are based on data from the 2001 Survey of Consumer Finances. ; Also issued as Payment Cards Center Discussion Paper No....

Traditional forms of payment, such as currency, coin, and paper checks, are quickly being eclipsed by electronic forms, such as payments made by ATM, credit card, or automated clearing house. More recently, smart cards, debit cards, and PC banking have joined this electronic army of new ways to...