Banks impose a variety of account fees, and credit card issuers impose a variety of fees related to card usage. Using detailed data from a 2021 representative diary survey of US consumers, we investigate whether lower-income consumers and Black consumers are more likely to pay bank account or...

Banks impose a variety of account fees, and credit card issuers impose a variety of fees related to card usage. Using detailed data from a 2021 representative diary survey of US consumers, we investigate whether lower-income consumers and Black consumers are more likely to pay bank account or...

A number of jurisdictions are considering imposing price caps on the interchange fees that card issuers receive from merchant acquirers when cardholders pay with their cards. Several have already done so. This paper examines the net impact of these price caps on consumers. The economics of...

Payment networks typically differentiate their interchange fees (IFs) by setting a variety of sector-specific IFs for the same payment card. While the previous literature on IFs has focussed on the optimal level of IFs, this paper addresses the optimal structure of IFs, i.e. whether or not IF...

In this study, a multi-party payment card network model is constructed to explore the determination of merchant and interchange fees, thereby extending Langlet's (2009) observation of unitary payment systems. The focus of this analysis was on the impact of consumer price elasticity, the relative...

In this paper we empirically address the issue of whether reductions in card payment interchange fees have a significant impact on prices paid by consumers. The answer to this question is at the core of most competition policy cases and regulations that have been applied to card payment markets....

The interchange fee applied in four-party card systems transfers incomes in the payment card business from merchants to cardholders. Assessment of the interchange fee and the interpretation of its role have prompted serious professional debate in recent years. Beyond the professional debate,...

We analyse a card payment system to assess the economic impact of the interchange fee. This fee is paid by the bank of the merchant, the acquirer, to the bank of the consumer, the issuer. We build up a mode in order to explore whether the interchange fee can enhance the participation to the...