IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bis/biswps/1055.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The pandemic, cash and retail payment behaviour: insights from the future of payments database

Author

Listed:
  • Raphael Auer
  • Giulio Cornelli
  • Jon Frost

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a shock to retail payment behaviour. How have the changes differed across countries? What do they imply for the future of cash and digital payments? We assemble a new "Future of Payments" database on retail payment behaviour for up to 95 countries over September 2019 to June 2022. We compare this with measures of the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic, using variation in the timing of waves of cases, changes in mobility and lockdown measures across countries. We find that card-not-present payments, payment app downloads and the volume of cash in circulation all rose in weeks of more stringent lockdowns. Changes were less pronounced in countries with higher mobile penetration. However, recent data suggest that some effects reversed once lockdowns were eased, and mobility rebounded.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael Auer & Giulio Cornelli & Jon Frost, 2022. "The pandemic, cash and retail payment behaviour: insights from the future of payments database," BIS Working Papers 1055, Bank for International Settlements.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1055
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1055.pdf
    File Function: Full PDF document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1055.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klee, Elizabeth, 2008. "How people pay: Evidence from grocery store data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 526-541, April.
    2. Humphrey, David B & Kim, Moshe & Vale, Bent, 2001. "Realizing the Gains from Electronic Payments: Costs, Pricing, and Payment Choice," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(2), pages 216-234, May.
    3. Anneke Kosse & Ilaria Mattei, 2022. "Gaining momentum – Results of the 2021 BIS survey on central bank digital currencies," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 125.
    4. Sergei Koulayev & Marc Rysman & Scott Schuh & Joanna Stavins, 2016. "Explaining adoption and use of payment instruments by US consumers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(2), pages 293-325, May.
    5. Fernando Alvarez & David Argente, 2022. "On the Effects of the Availability of Means of Payments: The Case of Uber," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(3), pages 1737-1789.
    6. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich & Gita Gopinath & Prachi Mishra & Abhinav Narayanan, 2020. "Cash and the Economy: Evidence from India’s Demonetization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(1), pages 57-103.
    7. Morten Linnemann Bech & Umar Faruqui & Frederik Ougaard & Cristina Picillo, 2018. "Payments are a-changin' but cash still rules," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    8. Guerino Ardizzi & Andrea Nobili & Giorgia Rocco, 2020. "A game changer in payment habits: evidence from daily data during a pandemic," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 591, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    9. Jonker, Nicole & van der Cruijsen, Carin & Bijlsma, Michiel & Bolt, Wilko, 2022. "Pandemic payment patterns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    10. Orkun Saka & Barry Eichengreen & Cevat Giray Aksoy, 2022. "Epidemic Exposure, Financial Technology, and the Digital Divide," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(7), pages 1913-1940, October.
    11. repec:zbw:bofitp:2021_013 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Martin Brown & Nicole Hentschel & Hannes Mettler & Helmut Stix, 2020. "Financial Innovation, Payment Choice and Cash Demand - Causal Evidence from the Staggered Introduction of Contactless Debit Cards," Working Papers on Finance 2002, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Justus Meyer & Federica Teppa, 2023. "Euro area consumers' payment behaviour and banking digitalisation," Working Papers 772, DNB.
    2. Jon Frost & Priscilla Koo Wilkens & Anneke Kosse & Vatsala Shreeti & Carolina Velásquez, 2024. "Fast payments: design and adoption," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    3. Sebastian Doerr & Jon Frost & Leonardo Gambacorta & Vatsala Shreeti, 2023. "Big techs in finance," BIS Working Papers 1129, Bank for International Settlements.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lucas A. Mariani & Jose Renato Haas Ornelas & Bernardo Ricca, 2023. "Banks’ Physical Footprint and Financial Technology Adoption," Working Papers Series 576, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    2. Kotkowski, Radoslaw & Polasik, Michal, 2021. "COVID-19 pandemic increases the divide between cash and cashless payment users in Europe," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    3. Vânia G. Silva & Esmeralda A. Ramalho & Carlos R. Vieira, 2017. "The Use of Cheques in the European Union: A Cross-Country Analysis," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 581-602, July.
    4. Rösl, Gerhard & Seitz, Franz, 2021. "Cash and crises: No surprises by the virus," IMFS Working Paper Series 150, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    5. Tobias Trütsch, 2016. "The impact of mobile payment on payment choice," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 30(3), pages 299-336, August.
    6. Mariani, Lucas A. & Haas Ornelas, José Renato & Ricca, Bernardo, 2023. "Banks’ Physical Footprint and Financial Technology Adoption," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12812, Inter-American Development Bank.
    7. Guerino Ardizzi & Andrea Nobili & Giorgia Rocco, 2020. "A game changer in payment habits: evidence from daily data during a pandemic," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 591, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. Shy, Oz, 2021. "Cashless stores and cash users," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 622-638.
    9. Tamás Briglevics & Scott Schuh, 2020. "This Is What's in Your Wallet...and Here's How You Use It," Working Papers 20-04, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    10. Martin Brown & Nicole Hentschel & Hannes Mettler & Helmut Stix, 2020. "Financial Innovation, Payment Choice and Cash Demand - Causal Evidence from the Staggered Introduction of Contactless Debit Cards," Working Papers on Finance 2002, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    11. Rösl, Gerhard & Seitz, Franz, 2022. "On the stabilizing role of cash for societies," IMFS Working Paper Series 167, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    12. Martin Brown & Nicole Hentschel & Hannes Mettler & Helmut Stix, 2020. "Financial Innovation, Payment Choice and Cash Demand – Causal Evidence from the Staggered Introduction of Contactless Debit Cards (Martin Brown,Nicole Hentschel, Hannes Mettler, Helmut Stix)," Working Papers 230, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    13. Rajas Saroy & Sakshi Awasthy & Naveen K. Singh & Sonali M. Adki & Sarat Dhal, 2022. "The Impact Of Covid-19 On Digital Payment Habits Of Indian Households," Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking, Bank Indonesia, vol. 25(Special I), pages 19-42, March.
    14. Guerino Ardizzi & Massimiliano Cologgi, 2022. "Business models and pricing strategies in the market for ATM withdrawals," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 23, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. Joanna Stavins & Huijia Wu, 2017. "Payment discounts and surcharges: the role of consumer preferences," Working Papers 17-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    16. Alberto Di Iorio & Giorgia Rocco, 2022. "Easier said than done: why Italians pay in cash while preferring cashless," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 731, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    17. Marc Rysman & Scott Schuh, 2017. "New Innovations in Payments," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 27-48.
    18. Briglevics, Tamás & Schuh, Scott, 2014. "This is what's in your wallet... and how you use it," Working Paper Series 1684, European Central Bank.
    19. Schuh, Scott & Stavins, Joanna, 2010. "Why are (some) consumers (finally) writing fewer checks? The role of payment characteristics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1745-1758, August.
    20. Liñares-Zegarra, José M. & Willesson, Magnus, 2021. "The effects of negative interest rates on cash usage: Evidence for EU countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    retail payments; cash; Covid-19 pandemic; digital innovation.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1055. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Beslmeisl (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.