In 2004 the Swiss Competition Commission (ComCo) opened an investigation concerning multilateral agreed interchange fees in the Swiss credit card market which ended with an amicable settlement. The most important element of this amicable settlement consists in the limitation of the interchange...

In 2004 the Swiss Competition Commission (ComCo) opened an investigation concerning multilateral agreed interchange fees in the Swiss credit card market which ended with an amicable settlement. The most important element of this amicable settlement consists in the limitation of the interchange...

The paper offers a roadmap to the current economic thinking concerning interchange fees. After describing the fundamental externalities inherent in payment systems and analysing merchant resistance to interchange fee increases and the associations' determination of this fee, it derives the...

The pricing of payments has received increasing attention of regulators. In many cases, regulators are concerned that consumers do not face cost based prices. They argue that without cost based prices consumers will make inefficient choices. In this paper, it is argued that both, economics of...

In this paper, we discuss how fraud liability regimes impact the price structure that is chosen by a monopolistic payment platform, in a setting where merchants can invest in fraud detection technologies. We show that liability allocation rules distort the price structure charged by platforms or...

The present paper explores issues surrounding multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) in payment card markets from various angles. The Eurosystem’s public stance on interchange fees is neutral. However, the Eurosystem takes a keen interest in facilitating a constructive dialogue among the...

Abstract This paper surveys the economics literature on payment cards, focusing on the role of interchange fees, merchant internalization, surcharging and two-sided markets. The paper aims to integrate a wide range of theoretical papers with the relevant empirical research and important policy...

Abstract In recent years, regulators in various parts of the world have capped interchange fees on debit and credit cards. The justification for the caps rests to a large extent on the argument that these cards have, for certain merchants, become must-take cards rather than “wanna-take...