IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/rneart/v5y2006i1n9.html

A Puzzle of Card Payment Pricing: Why Are Merchants Still Accepting Card Payments?

Author

Listed:
  • Hayashi Fumiko

    (Payments System Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City)

Abstract

This paper presents models that explain why merchants accept payment cards even when the fees they face exceed the transactional benefits they receive from a card transaction. The prevalent assumption - merchants accept cards only when they earn positive net transactional benefits - holds only for a monopoly merchant who faces an inelastic consumer demand. The paper also explores possible explanations for the recent gradual increases in merchant fees in the United States. Three possible explanations are 1) inflexible product price setting by merchants, 2) decreases (increases) in cardholder fees (rebates), and 3) increases in cardholding-customer proportion in a given industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Hayashi Fumiko, 2006. "A Puzzle of Card Payment Pricing: Why Are Merchants Still Accepting Card Payments?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rneart:v:5:y:2006:i:1:n:9
    DOI: 10.2202/1446-9022.1093
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1446-9022.1093
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1446-9022.1093?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Krivosheya, Egor & Korolev, Andrew, 2018. "Benefits of the retail payments card market: Evidence from Russian merchants," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 466-473.
    2. Michał Polasik & Jerzy Marzec, 2018. "Uwarunkowania akceptacji kart płatniczych w handlu i usługach detalicznych w Polsce," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 49(4), pages 404-432.
    3. Christian Jaag & Christian Bach, 2014. "The Effect of Payment Reversibility on E-commerce and Postal Quality," Working Papers 0046, Swiss Economics.
    4. Fumiko Hayashi & Stuart E. Weiner, 2005. "Competition and credit and debit card interchange fees: a cross-country analysis," Payments System Research Working Paper PSR WP 05-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    5. James J. McAndrews & Zhu Wang, 2008. "The economics of two-sided payment card markets: pricing, adoption and usage," Research Working Paper RWP 08-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    6. Fumiko Hayashi, 2009. "Do U.S. consumers really benefit from payment card rewards?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 94(Q I), pages 37-63.
    7. Ron Borzekowski & Elizabeth K. Kiser & Mark D. Manuszak & Robin A. Prager, 2009. "Interchange fees and payment card networks: economics, industry developments, and policy issues," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2009-23, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Gabriel Garber & Márcio Issao Nakane, 2016. "Commercial Platforms With Heterogeneous Participants," Working Papers Series 417, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    9. Weiner Stuart E. & Wright Julian, 2005. "Interchange Fees in Various Countries: Developments and Determinants," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(4), pages 1-34, December.
    10. Fumiko Hayashi, 2008. "The economics of payment card fee structure: what drives payment card rewards?," Research Working Paper RWP 08-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    11. Jonker Nicole, 2011. "Card Acceptance and Surcharging: the Role of Costs and Competition," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-35, June.
    12. Fumiko Hayashi, 2008. "The economics of payment card fee structure: what is the optimal balance between merchant fee and payment card rewards?," Research Working Paper RWP 08-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    13. Fumiko Hayashi, 2008. "The economics of payment card fee structure: policy considerations of payment card rewards," Research Working Paper RWP 08-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    14. Fumiko Hayashi & Stuart E. Weiner, 2006. "Interchange fees in Australia, the UK, and the United States : matching theory and practice," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 91(Q III), pages 75-112.
    15. Zhu Wang, 2010. "Regulating debit cards: the case of ad valorem fees," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 95(Q I), pages 71-93.
    16. Chakravorti, Sujit & To, Ted, 2007. "A theory of credit cards," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 583-595, June.
    17. Wang, Zhu, 2010. "Market structure and payment card pricing: What drives the interchange?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 86-98, January.
    18. Fumiko Hayashi, 2006. "Pricing and welfare implications of payment card network competition," Payments System Research Working Paper PSR WP 06-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    19. James J. McAndrews & Zhu Wang, 2006. "Microfoundations of two-sided markets: the payment card example," Payments System Research Working Paper PSR WP 06-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    20. Nicole Jonker & Anneke Kosse & Lola Hernández, 2012. "Cash usage in the Netherlands: How much, where, when, who and whenever one wants?," DNB Occasional Studies 1002, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    21. David S. Evans & Richard Schmalensee, 2005. "The economics of interchange fees and their regulation : an overview," Proceedings – Payments System Research Conferences, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue May, pages 73-120.
    22. Economides, Nicholas & Henriques, David, 2011. "To surcharge or not to surcharge? A two-sided market perspective of the no-surchage rule," Working Paper Series 1388, European Central Bank.
    23. Zhu Wang, 2008. "Market structure and credit card pricing: what drives the interchange?," Payments System Research Working Paper PSR WP 06-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

    More about this item

    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:bpj:rneart:v:5:y:2006:i:1:n:9. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyterbrill.com .

    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.