Financial services

• Why Is Cash (Still) So Entrenched? Insights from the Bank of Canada’s 2009 Methods-of-Payment Survey

  Staff Discussion Paper 2012-2 Carlos Arango, Dylan Hogg, Alyssa Lee

  The authors present key insights from the Bank of Canada’s 2009 Methods-of-Payment survey. In the survey, about 6,800 participants completed a questionnaire with detailed information regarding their personal finances, as well as their use and perceptions of different payment methods.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial services JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E4, E41, L, L8, L81

• Price Competition and Concentration in Search and Negotiation Markets: Evidence from Mortgage Lending

  Staff Working Paper 2012-4 Jason Allen, Robert Clark, Jean-François Houde

  This paper examines the impact of bank consolidation on mortgage rates in order to evaluate the extent to which mortgage markets are competitive. Mortgage markets are decentralized and so rates are determined through a search and negotiation process.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Interest rates JEL Code(s): G, G2, L, L1

• How Do You Pay? The Role of Incentives at the Point-of-Sale

  Staff Working Paper 2011-23 Carlos Arango, Kim Huynh, Leonard Sabetti

  This paper uses discrete-choice models to quantify the role of consumer socioeconomic characteristics, payment instrument attributes, and transaction features on the probability of using cash, debit card, or credit card at the point-of-sale.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial services JEL Code(s): C, C3, C35, C8, C83, E, E4, E41

• Discounting in Mortgage Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2011-3 Jason Allen, Robert Clark, Jean-François Houde

  This paper studies discounting in mortgage markets. Using transaction-level data on Canadian mortgages, we document that over time there's been an increase in the average discount, along with substantial dispersion.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2, G21, L, L0

• Central Bank Haircut Policy

  Staff Working Paper 2010-23 James Chapman, Jonathan Chiu, Miguel Molico

  We present a model of central bank collateralized lending to study the optimal choice of the haircut policy. We show that a lending facility provides a bundle of two types of insurance: insurance against liquidity risk as well as insurance against downside risk of the collateral.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Financial services, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary policy implementation, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E40, E5, E50

• Price Movements in the Canadian Residential Mortgage Market

  Staff Working Paper 2009-13 Jason Allen, Darcey McVanel

  The authors empirically analyze the price-setting behaviour of the major Canadian banks in the residential mortgage market over the period 1991–2007. They use weekly posted prices of the major mortgage providers to study the degree of competition in mortgage price setting.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2

• A Survey and Risk Analysis of Selected Non-Bank Retail Payments Systems

  Staff Discussion Paper 2008-17 Nikil Chande

  Payment services offered by non-banks have flourished in recent years. The author provides an overview of the different kinds of non-bank retail payments schemes currently available in Canada, illustrating each by focusing on a specific example.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial services, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, G, G2, G20

• Are There Canada-U.S. Differences in SME Financing?

  Staff Working Paper 2008-41 Danny Leung, Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima

  Previous surveys of Canadian and U.S. business owners suggest that access to financing in Canada may be more problematic than in the United States. Using the 2003 Survey of Small Business Financing in the United States and the 2004 Survey on Financing of Small and Medium Enterprises in Canada, this paper examines whether this perception can be better quantified.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial services JEL Code(s): C, C2, C21, G, G2, G21

• What To Do about Bilateral Credit Limits in the LVTS When a Closure Is Anticipated: Risk versus Liquidity Sharing among LVTS Participants

  Staff Discussion Paper 2008-13 Sean O'Connor, Greg Caldwell

  The authors examine the effect of a trade-off between shared credit risk and liquidity efficiency, among participants in Tranche 2 of the Large Value Transfer System (LVTS T2), on their decisions to leave open, or close, their bilateral credit limits (BCLs) to a participant at risk of imminent closure.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, L, L1, L13, L14

• Liquidity Efficiency and Distribution in the LVTS: Non-Neutrality of System Changes under Network Asymmetry

  Staff Discussion Paper 2008-11 Sean O'Connor, James Chapman, Kirby Millar

  The authors consider the liquidity efficiency of Tranche 2 of the Large Value Transfer System (LVTS T2) by examining, through an empirical analysis, some plausible strategic reactions of individual participants to a systemwide shock to available liquidity in the system.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, L, L1, L13, L14