Payment transformation has generated a shift from paper to cards and electronic payments in the United States, but there is also a large degree of heterogeneity among consumers in how they pay. We present factors affecting consumer payment behavior, show data on how consumers pay in the United...

We use new data from the 2015 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice to analyze price discounts and surcharges based on the payment method used for transactions. We examine consumer preferences for specific payment instruments and test whether consumer demand for payment instruments is price elastic....

We estimate a two-stage Heckman selection model of credit card adoption and use with a unique dataset that combines administrative data from the Equifax credit bureau and self-reported data from the Survey of Consumer Payment Choice, a representative survey of US consumers. Even though the...

Despite the introduction of new technology and new ways to make payments, the Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC) finds that consumer payment behavior has remained stable over the past decade. In the 10 years of the survey, debit cards, cash, and credit cards consistently have been the most...

Authors' note: This paper reports on a research effort by Federal Reserve staff to examine market structure implications in the still‐emerging faster payments market. The analysis and conclusions in this paper are those of the authors and do not indicate official positions of the Board of...

The U.S. payments industry is in the process of developing ubiquitous, safe, faster electronic solutions for making a broad variety of business and personal payments. How this market for faster payments will evolve will be shaped by a range of economic forces, such as economies of scale and...

Even though security of payments has long been identified as an important aspect of the consumer payment experience, recent literature fails to appropriately assess the extent of social spillovers among payment users. We test for the existence and importance of such spillovers by analyzing...

The Federal Reserve Financial Services (FRFS) strategic plan for 2012-2016 named improvements in the end-to-end speed and security of the payment system as two of its policy initiatives. End-to-end in this context means that for the first time end-users are explicitly included. Earlier versions...

In 2013, the average number of consumer payments per month did not change significantly from the average number in 2012. The number of check payments continued to decline, and although the number of noncheck payments increased to offset the decline in checks, the number of transactions conducted...

The Federal Reserve named improvements in the speed and security of the payment system as two of its policy initiatives for 2012-2016. Using new data from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC) and models from earlier research, we estimate how various aspects of speed and security...