Consumer Choice and Merchant Acceptance of Payment Media
Bolt and Chakravorti study the ability of banks and merchants to influence the consumer's payment instrument choice. Consumers participate in payment card networks to insure themselves against three types of shocks - income, theft, and their merchant match. Merchants choose which payment instruments to accept based on their production costs and increased profit opportunities. The authors' key results can be summarized as follows. The structure of prices is determined by the bank's cost to provide payment services including the aggregate credit loss, the probability of theft, and the timing of income flows. They also identify equilibria where the bank finds it profitable to offer debit or credit cards or both. Finally, they compare welfare-maximizing price structures to those that result from the bank's profit-maximizing price structure.