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Consumer Payment Choice for Bill Payments

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  • Claire Greene
  • Joanna Stavins

Abstract

Why do US consumers pay their bills the way they do? Using data from a recent diary of consumer payment behavior, we find that the type of bill consumers are paying and how they are paying (online or automatically) are important factors in determining the payment method, in addition to the dollar value of the bill and the demographic and income profile of the individual who is paying. In contrast, dollar value and demographic attributes are found to be the most important factors determining the payment instrument chosen for purchases. Consumer choices for bill payments are somewhat constrained by requirements imposed by merchants, while the choice of payment instrument for purchases is not constrained by such requirements. The convenience and speed provided by automatic and online payments are not benefitting all US consumers equally. Unbanked consumers lack access to most payment methods and, hence, use cash or prepaid cards to pay their bills. Low-income consumers pay their bills differently from the rest of the sample: They are more likely to pay in person, use significantly more cash, and are less likely to set up automated or online bill payments, regardless of whether they have a bank account. Although consumers specify in the diary which methods they prefer to use to pay their bills, in practice they are not likely to act consistently with their stated preferences. We find that consumers who pay their bills online are less likely to deviate from their preferred payment method, while those who pay their bills automatically are more likely to deviate, after we control for income, demographic attributes, the dollar amount of the bill, and the merchant type. We find no evidence of the salience effect of automatic bill payments that Sexton (2015) finds for energy consumption. Rather, we find that consumers who pay their bills automatically have higher incomes and spend more on bills than lower-income consumers do, but that automatic bill payments are lower in value on average, which is the opposite of the finding by Sexton (2015).

Suggested Citation

  • Claire Greene & Joanna Stavins, 2020. "Consumer Payment Choice for Bill Payments," Working Papers 20-9, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbwp:88884
    DOI: 10.29412/res.wp.2020.09
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    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. Naoki Wakamori & Angelika Welte, 2017. "Why Do Shoppers Use Cash? Evidence from Shopping Diary Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(1), pages 115-169, February.
    3. Hayashi Fumiko & Klee Elizabeth, 2003. "Technology Adoption and Consumer Payments: Evidence from Survey Data," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(2), pages 1-16, June.
    4. Steven Sexton, 2015. "Automatic Bill Payment and Salience Effects: Evidence from Electricity Consumption," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 229-241, May.
    5. Stavins, Joanna, 2018. "Consumer preferences for payment methods: Role of discounts and surcharges," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 35-53.
    6. Arango, Carlos & Huynh, Kim P. & Sabetti, Leonard, 2015. "Consumer payment choice: Merchant card acceptance versus pricing incentives," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 130-141.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ying Lei Toh, 2021. "When Paying Bills, Low-Income Consumers Incur Higher Costs," Payments System Research Briefing, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue November , pages 1-7, November.
    2. Anneke Kosse, 2021. "An Empirical Analysis of Bill Payment Choices," Staff Working Papers 21-23, Bank of Canada.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    bill payments; payment choice; payment preferences; consumer payments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System

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