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U.S. Payment Trends and Regulatory Developments
In his presentation, Bob Chakravorti described several new and pending payment regulations in the United States at the Cards & Payments 2010 conference held in Paris, France.
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Underlying Incentives in Credit Card Networks
Over the last decade, consumers have tripled their use of credit cards as more merchants have increased their acceptance of them. This increase suggests that incentives in today’s marketplace favor greater credit card use by...
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Universal Access, Cost Recovery, and Payment Services
Chakravorti, Gunther, and Moore suggest a subtle, yet far-reaching, tension in the objectives specified by the Monetary Control Act of 1980 (MCA) for the Federal Reserve’s role in providing retail payment services, such as check...
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Visa Hires Chakra Advisors LLC
Chakra Advisors LLC hired to advise Visa on payments developments and thought leadership globally.
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What Is Being Disrupted by Initial Coin Offerings?
Initial coin offerings (ICOs) have the potential to dramatically change how firms raise funds enabling less costly, more transparent, more accessible, and faster access to capital. The total amount of funds raised by ICOs was...
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What Is the Role of Public Authorities in Retail Payment Systems?
On June 21–22, 2010, the Chicago Fed and the University of Granada co-sponsored a conference that brought together policymakers, academics, and industry practitioners to discuss evolving retail payment systems and the role of public authorities...
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What Problems Do CBDCs Solve?
In this blog, Chakravorti explores the role of retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and their impact on payments and banking, more fundamentally. CBDCs are digital representations of fiat currencies issued by central banks, but...
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What Problems Do Stablecoins Solve?
In this blog, Chakravorti discusses the roles for stablecoins and their ability to increase the use of cryptocurrencies for both payments and DeFi applications. He also discusses different ways to regulate stablecoins to maintain financial...
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What We Do
We bring innovative ideas to advise on the challenges facing the financial services industry based on our broad collective experience. Our thought leaders advise large and complex financial institutions, global financial networks, FinTechs, central banks...
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Whither Loose Change: The Diminishing Demand For Small Denomination Currency
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...
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Who Pays for Credit Cards?
Chakravorti and Emmons model side payments in a competitive credit‐card market. If competitive retailers absorb the cost of accepting credit cards by charging a higher goods price to everyone, then someone must subsidize convenience users...
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Who We Are
We are an innovative and creative economic strategy consulting firm that uses data-driven analysis to advise industry participants and policymakers on the evolving financial market services industry. Our experts advise public and private sector decision...
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Why Do Banks Reward Their Customers To Use Their Credit Cards?
Using a unique administrative level dataset from a large and diverse U.S. financial institution, Agarwal, Chakravorti, and Lunn test the impact of rewards on credit card spending and debt. Specifically, we study the impact of...
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Why Do We Still Write So Many Checks?
In this article, Chakravorti and McHugh address why consumers, merchants, and financial institutions are reluctant to embrace electronic payments even though electronic payment networks, such as the credit card and automated clearinghouse (ACH) networks, have...
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Why Has Stored Value Not Caught On?
In this article, Chakravorti asks why have general-purpose stored-value cards been unsuccessful in penetrating the U.S. market? Three necessary conditions for a payment instrument to be successful are discussed: consumers and merchants need to be...
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Why Invest in Payment Innovations?
Chakravorti and Kobor provide a framework to study the creation and adoption of innovations by payment providers and processors. The authors identify several motivating factors for banks and nonbanks to invest in payment innovations. In...