E42 - Monetary Systems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System; Payment Systems
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Crypto ‘Money’: Perspective of a Couple of Canadian Central Bankers
The market for cryptoassets has exploded in size in the 10 years since bitcoin was launched. The technology underlying cryptoassets, blockchain, has also been held up as a technology that promises to transform entire industries. -
Should the Central Bank Issue E-money?
Should a central bank take over the provision of e-money, a circulable electronic liability? We discuss how e-money technology changes the tradeoff between public and private provision, and the tradeoff between e-money and a central bank's existing liabilities like bank notes and reserves. -
Is a Cashless Society Problematic?
The use of bank notes in Canada for payments has declined consistently for some time, and similar trends are evident in other countries. This has led some observers to predict a cashless society in the future. -
How Long Does It Take You to Pay? A Duration Study of Canadian Retail Transaction Payment Times
Using an exclusive data set of payment times for retail transactions made in Canada, I show that cash is the most time-efficient method of payment (MOP) when compared with payments by debit and credit cards. I model payment efficiency using Cox proportional hazard models, accounting for consumer choice of MOP. -
Central Bank Digital Currency and Monetary Policy
Many central banks are contemplating whether to issue central bank digital currency. This piece explores the implications as well as potential motivators of such a step. -
Swedish Riksbank Notes and Enskilda Bank Notes: Lessons for Digital Currencies
This paper examines the experience of Sweden with government notes and private bank notes to determine how well the Swedish experience corresponds to that of Canada and the United States. Sweden is important to study because it has had government notes in circulation for more than 350 years, and it had government notes before private bank notes. -
Central Bank Digital Currency: Motivations and Implications
The emergence of digital currencies such as Bitcoin and the underlying blockchain and distribution ledger technology have attracted significant attention. These developments have raised the possibility of considerable impacts on the financial system and perhaps the wider economy. -
Cash Versus Card: Payment Discontinuities and the Burden of Holding Coins
Cash is the preferred method of payment for small value transactions generally less than $25. We provide insight to this finding with a new theoretical model that characterizes and compares consumers’ costs of paying with cash to paying with cards for each transaction. -
November 16, 2017
Acceptance and Use of Payments at the Point of Sale in Canada
Merchants universally accept cash. Consumers widely hold cash but also carry debit and credit cards. The cost of using a method of payment has only a small influence on which method consumers use. Large merchants accept all payments, while only two-thirds of small and medium-sized businesses accept credit cards. Merchants report that credit cards are the costliest payment method compared with cash and debit cards. However, costs are not the only consideration. Merchant acceptance of credit accounts for the many con-sumers that want to use credit cards. This interaction between consumers and merchants is known as network externalities.