IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Incentives at the counter: An empirical analysis of surcharging card payment and payment behaviour in the Netherlands

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Wilko Bolt
  • Nicole Jonker
  • Corry van Renselaar

Abstract

In card payment systems, no-surcharge rules prohibit merchants from charging consumers extra for card payments. However, Dutch retailers are allowed to surcharge consumers for their debit card use. This allows an empirical analysis of the impact of surcharging on the demand for debit card services, and the effect of removing the no-surcharge rule on card acceptance by retailers and on consumer payment choice. Based on consumer and retailer survey data, our analysis shows that surcharging steers consumers away from using debit cards towards cash. Half of the observed difference in debit card payment shares across retailers can be explained by this surcharge effect. First calculations suggest that removing the surcharge on debit card payments in the Netherlands may induce considerable social cost savings of more than EUR 100 million in the long run.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: https://www.dnb.nl/binaries/Working%20paper%20196_tcm46-210266.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department in its series DNB Working Papers with number 196.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: Dec 2008
Handle: RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:196
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Postbus 98, 1000 AB Amsterdam

Web page: http://www.dnb.nl/en/

More information through EDIRC

Keywords: survey data; retail payments; no-surcharge rule; cost efficiency;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
  • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
  • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Humphrey, David B., 2004. "Replacement of cash by cards in US consumer payments," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 211-225.
  2. Wilko Bolt & David Humphrey & Roland Uittenbogaard, 2005. "The Effect of Transaction Pricing on the Adoption of Electronic Payments: A Cross-Country Comparison," DNB Working Papers 071, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
  3. Garcia-Swartz Daniel D. & Hahn Robert W. & Layne-Farrar Anne, 2006. "The Move Toward a Cashless Society: A Closer Look at Payment Instrument Economics," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-24, June.
  4. Mark Armstrong, 2006. "Competition in two‐sided markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, 09.
  5. Marc Rysman, 2006. "An Empirical Analysis of Payment Card Usage," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2006-002, Boston University - Department of Economics.
  6. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2014. "Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 10.
  7. Beijnen, Christine & Bolt, Wilko, 2009. "Size matters: Economies of scale in European payments processing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 203-210, February.
  8. Hyytinen, Ari & Takalo, Tuomas, 2004. "Multihoming in the market for payment media : evidence from young Finnish consumers," Research Discussion Papers 25/2004, Bank of Finland.
  9. Ron Borzekowski & K. Kiser Elizabeth & Ahmed Shaista, 2008. "Consumers' Use of Debit Cards: Patterns, Preferences, and Price Response," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(1), pages 149-172, 02.
  10. W. Bolt, 2003. "Retail Payments in the Netherlands: some Facts and Some Theory," WO Research Memoranda (discontinued) 722, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
  11. Hans Brits & Carlo Winder, 2005. "Payments are no free lunch," DNB Occasional Studies 302, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
  12. 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.
  13. Zinman, Jonathan, 2009. "Debit or credit?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 358-366, February.
  14. Chakravorti Sujit, 2003. "Theory of Credit Card Networks: A Survey of the Literature," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(2), pages 1-19, June.
  15. Bolt, Wilko & Tieman, Alexander F., 2008. "Heavily skewed pricing in two-sided markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1250-1255, September.
  16. Scholnick, Barry & Massoud, Nadia & Saunders, Anthony & Carbo-Valverde, Santiago & Rodríguez-Fernández, Francisco, 2008. "The economics of credit cards, debit cards and ATMs: A survey and some new evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1468-1483, August.
  17. Borzekowski, Ron & Kiser, Elizabeth K., 2008. "The choice at the checkout: Quantifying demand across payment instruments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 889-902, July.
  18. Bolt, Wilko & Jonker, Nicole & van Renselaar, Corry, 2010. "Incentives at the counter: An empirical analysis of surcharging card payments and payment behaviour in the Netherlands," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1738-1744, August.
  19. Kahn, Charles M. & Roberds, William, 2009. "Why pay? An introduction to payments economics," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-23, January.
  20. Garcia-Swartz Daniel D. & Hahn Robert W. & Layne-Farrar Anne, 2006. "The Move Toward a Cashless Society: Calculating the Costs and Benefits," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-30, June.
  21. repec:bpj:rneart:v:5:y:2006:i:2:p:175-198 is not listed on IDEAS
  22. Gans Joshua S & King Stephen P, 2003. "The Neutrality of Interchange Fees in Payment Systems," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, January.
  23. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2002. "Cooperation Among Competitors: Some Economics Of Payment Card Associations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(4), pages 549-570, Winter.
  24. Wright, Julian, 2003. "Optimal card payment systems," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 587-612, August.
  25. Boeschoten, W C & Fase, M M G, 1989. "The Way We Pay with Money," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 7(3), pages 319-326, July.
  26. Guibourg, Gabriela & Segendorff, Bjorn, 2007. "A note on the price- and cost structure of retail payment services in the Swedish banking sector 2002," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 2817-2827, September.
  27. Nicole Jonker & Thijs Kettenis, 2007. "Explaining cash usage in the Netherlands: the effect of electronic payment instruments," DNB Working Papers 136, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
  28. Nicole Jonker, 2007. "Payment Instruments as Perceived by Consumers – Results from a Household Survey," De Economist, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 271-303, September.
  29. Wilko Bolt & Sujit Chakravorti, 2008. "Consumer Choice and Merchant Acceptance of Payment Media," DNB Working Papers 197, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
  30. repec:rje:randje:v:37:y:2006:3:p:645-667 is not listed on IDEAS
  31. Bergman, Mats & Guibourg, Gabriela & Segendorf, Björn, 2007. "The Costs of Paying – Private and Social Costs of Cash and Card Payments," Working Paper Series 212, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as
in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:196. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Rob Vet)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.