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152 result(s)

Central Bank Digital Currency: Motivations and Implications

Staff Discussion Paper 2017-16 Walter Engert, Ben Fung
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

Staff Working Paper 2017-47 Heng Chen, Kim Huynh, Oz Shy
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.

Fintech: Is This Time Different? A Framework for Assessing Risks and Opportunities for Central Banks

Staff Discussion Paper 2017-10 Meyer Aaron, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Samantha Sohal
We investigate the risks and opportunities to the mandates of central banks arising from fintech developments.

Adoption of a New Payment Method: Theory and Experimental Evidence

Staff Working Paper 2017-28 Jasmina Arifovic, John Duffy, Janet Hua Jiang
We model the introduction of a new payment method, e.g., e-money, that competes with an existing payment method, e.g., cash. The new payment method involves relatively lower per-transaction costs for both buyers and sellers, but sellers must pay a fixed fee to accept the new payment method.
May 25, 2017

Project Jasper: Are Distributed Wholesale Payment Systems Feasible Yet?

This report describes a joint endeavour between public and private sectors to explore a wholesale payment system based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). They find that a stand-alone DLT system is unlikely to be as beneficial as a centralized payment system in terms of core operating costs; however, it could increase financial system efficiency as a result of integration with the broader financial market infrastructure.

The Bank of Canada 2015 Retailer Survey on the Cost of Payment Methods: Calibration for Single-Location Retailers

Technical Report No. 109 Heng Chen, Rallye Shen
Calibrated weights are created to (a) reduce the nonresponse bias; (b) reduce the coverage error; and (c) make the weighted estimates from the sample consistent with the target population in terms of certain key variables.

The Costs of Point-of-Sale Payments in Canada

Using data from our 2014 cost-of-payments survey, we calculate resource costs for cash, debit cards and credit cards. For each payment method, we examine the total cost incurred by consumers, retailers, financial institutions and infrastructures, the Royal Canadian Mint and the Bank of Canada.

Adoption Costs of Financial Innovation: Evidence from Italian ATM Cards

The discrete choice to adopt a financial innovation affects a household’s exposure to inflation and transactions costs. We model this adoption decision as being subject to an unobserved cost.

Canadian Bank Notes and Dominion Notes: Lessons for Digital Currencies

Staff Working Paper 2017-5 Ben Fung, Scott Hendry, Warren E. Weber
This paper studies the period in Canada when both private bank notes and government-issued notes (Dominion notes) were simultaneously in circulation. Because both of these notes shared many of the characteristics of today's digital currencies, the experience with these notes can be used to draw lessons about how digital currencies might perform.
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