Heng Chen - Latest

• Incorporating Trip-Chaining to Measuring Canadians’ Access to Cash

  Staff Working Paper 2025-16 Heng Chen, Hongyu Xiao

  Our paper employs smartphone data to construct an improved cash access metric by accounting for both spatial agglomeration and households’ travel patterns. We find that incorporating trip-chaining into the travel metric could show that travel costs are from 15 to 25% less than not incorporating trip-chaining and that the biggest decrease is driven by rural residents.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial services, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, O, O1, O18, R, R2, R22, R4, R41

• Canadians’ access to cash in 2023

  Staff Analytical Note 2025-13 Heng Chen, Hongyu Xiao, Daneal O’Habib, Stephen Wild

  This study updates our measure of Canadians' access to cash through automated banking machines and financial institution branches. We find that in 2023 overall access to cash remains stable, while rural Canadians continue having less access.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial services, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): J, J1, J15, O, O1, R, R5, R51

• Low Response Rate from Merchants? Sample and Ask Consumers! An Application of Indirect Sampling Under a Consumer-Merchant Bipartite Network

  Technical Report No. 126 Heng Chen, Joy Wu

  Under the consumer-merchant bipartite network, we apply the indirect sampling approach to estimate merchant payment acceptance through a consumer payment diary.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C8, C80, C83, E, E5

• How do Canadians perceive access to cash?

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-24 Heng Chen, Daneal O’Habib, Hongyu Xiao

  This paper introduces a subjective measure of cash accessibility in Canada, complementing existing distance-based metrics developed by Chen, O’Habib and Xiao (2023). Analyzing data from the 2023 Methods-of-Payment Survey, this study explores how Canadians perceive their ease of accessing cash from automated banking machines (ABMs) and financial institution branches.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial services, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): J, J1, J15, O, O1, R, R5, R51

• How Far Do Canadians Need to Travel to Access Cash?

  Staff Discussion Paper 2023-28 Heng Chen, Daneal O’Habib, Hongyu Xiao

  This paper develops a travel-based metric to measure Canadians’ access to cash from automated banking machines (ABMs) and financial institution branches. We find that, overall, access to cash remained stable between 2019 and 2022. The total number of ABMs in Canada increased by 3.7% and the total number of branches decreased by 5.2% during that period.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial services, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, J, J1, J15, R, R5, R51

• Canadians’ Access to Cash Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  Staff Discussion Paper 2022-15 Heng Chen, Marie-Hélène Felt

  This paper studies Canadians’ access to cash using the geographical distribution of automated banking machines (ABMs). During the pandemic, there have been no sustained adverse effects on cash accessibility.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Financial services, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): J, J1, J15, O, O1, R, R5, R51

• Identifying Financially Remote First Nations Reserves

  Staff Discussion Paper 2022-11 Heng Chen, Walter Engert, Kim Huynh, Daneal O’Habib

  Chen et al. (2021) show that almost one-third of First Nations band offices in Canada are within 1 kilometre (km) of an automated banking machine (ABM) or financial institution (FI) branch and more than half are within 5 km.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Financial institutions, Financial services, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42, E5, G, G2, G21

• Cash and COVID-19: What happened in 2021

  Staff Discussion Paper 2022-8 Heng Chen, Walter Engert, Kim Huynh, Daneal O’Habib, Joy Wu, Julia Zhu

  Using data from the Bank Note Distribution System and consumer surveys, we find that bank notes in circulation remained high through 2021. Canadians continued to rely on electronic methods of payment, but a significant share also continued using cash for payments.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Central bank research, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, C9, E, E4, O, O5, O54

• Cash and COVID-19: The impact of the second wave in Canada

  Staff Discussion Paper 2021-12 Heng Chen, Walter Engert, Marie-Hélène Felt, Kim Huynh, Gradon Nicholls, Daneal O’Habib, Julia Zhu

  The COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased the demand for cash. Cash in circulation increased sharply from March through December 2020, particularly in the early months of this period. Although use of electronic methods of payment also increased significantly, cash use for payments remains high for low-value transactions and among certain demographic groups.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Central bank research, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, C9, E, E4, O, O5, O54

• Consumer Cash Withdrawal Behaviour: Branch Networks and Online Financial Innovation

  Staff Working Paper 2021-28 Heng Chen, Matthew Strathearn, Marcel Voia

  The physical network of bank branches is important in how consumers manage their cash holdings. This paper estimates how consumer withdrawal behaviour responds to the distance they must travel to their branch.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, R, R2, R22