Bob Chakravorti presented at Payments Canada 2018 in Toronto on May 9, 2018. He discussed the response of incumbents to the entry of FinTech firms. Specifically, he discussed payment, lending, wealth management, and cryptocurrency segments. He touched on the role of regulation and discussed the lack of banking services in...
In his testimony, Bob Chakravorti elaborated on the following areas: first, the state of the economic literature on the costs and benefits of capital regulation; second, the enormous changes that we have seen post-crisis in the bank capital regulatory landscape and the ensuing changes to the quality and quantity of...
Bob Chakravorti discusses surcharging and honor-all-cards rules for payment cards. Generally, merchants charge the same price regardless of the type of payment instrument used to make purchases. In many jurisdictions, merchants are not allowed to add a surcharge for payment card transactions because of legal (some states in the U.S...
While payment card usage has increased dramatically, the stock of outstanding currency has not declined as rapidly. Amromin and Chakravorti analyze changes in cash demand for 13 advanced economies from 1988 to 2003 by separating cash into three denomination categories to disentangle its store of wealth and payment functions. Defining...
In his presentation to Bank of Mexico economists and payment experts, Chakravorti presented an update of economic models that consider various forms of regulation.
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...
Bolt and Chakravorti explain how a payment network operates. Having established the payment network framework, they discuss the costs and benefits of providing and using payment cards relative to various other types of payment instruments. Next, they review the key contributions to the theoretical payment card literature. They consider papers...
Chakravorti investigates payments system reforms begun by the Bank of Mexico in 1994. The goals of these reforms are to reduce the amount of uncollateralized intraday credit extended by the Bank of Mexico (previously unlimited), to promote a market-based allocation of intraday credit for interbank payments, and to move large-value...
In this article, Chakravorti argues that consumers’ use of newer, less expensive payment alternatives depends on the incentives merchants and payment instrument providers offer, along with consumers’ comfort level and faith in the instruments. Once consumers are comfortable with the newer electronic alternatives, cost of usage, convenience, and frequent-use incentives...