Sub-Saharan Africa ranks among the top regions in terms of growth in the number of mobile phone users. The success of mobile telephony is attributed to the opening of markets for private players and lenient regulatory policy. However, markets may be increasingly saturated and new regulations...

It is increasingly observable that competitors in different industries share customer data, which can be used for targeted pricing. We propose a modified Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity to analyze the incentives for such sharing and its ensuing welfare effects. We...

This report brings together in a single volume the excellent contributions presented at the high-level conference on “The Future of Retail Banking in Europe: Competition and Regulatory Challenges” held at CEPS on the 10th of June 2009. The conference was jointly organized by the European...

Information asymmetries can severely limit the cross-border border expansion of banks, if entering banks can only obtain incomplete information about potential new clients. Such asymmetries are reduced by credit registers, which distribute financial data on bank clients. This ECRI research...

Credit reporting systems are an important ingredient for financial markets. These systems are based upon the unique identification of borrowers, which is enabled if a compulsory national identification system exists in a country. We present evidence derived from difference-in-difference analyses...

It is increasingly observable that competitors in different industries share customer data, which can be used for targeted pricing. We propose a modified Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity to analyze the incentives for such sharing and its ensuing welfare effects. We...