Tobias Trütsch

The use of cash has been declining in Switzerland for some time. Nevertheless, cash remains an important means of payment and store of value. It is therefore important for many Swiss people to be able to withdraw and deposit cash easily. The newly published HSG study "Swiss Money Map" shows how and where to access cash.

This paper examines the effect of financial literacy on payment behaviour. We use data from a payment diary and an online survey conducted in 2018 in Switzerland. We estimate a two-step Heckman selection model to separately assess payment instrument adoption and usage decisions. We analyse the payment instruments cash, debit card, credit card, prepaid credit card, contactless debit card, contactless credit card and mobile payment. We introduce a novel payment-related literacy index. The results suggest that financial literacy exerts no effect on payment instrument choice. Payment literacy is a stronger predictor of payment behaviour than financial literacy. Traditional and contactless debit and credit card adoption are positively associated with payment literacy. We show that literacy levels impact payment instrument adoption more than subsequent usage decisions.

This paper investigates the effect of mobile payment on the adoption and use of traditional payment instruments such as cash, checks, and credit, debit and prepaid cards at the point of sale (POS). Data are from a 2012 representative survey on consumer payment choice in the United States. Using discrete-choice random utility models to simulate consumer behavior, the estimation provides two major findings. First, mobile payment does not replace physical payment cards, but is likely to substitute for paper-based payment methods such as cash and checks at the adoption stage. Second, mobile payment does not statistically significantly influence the choice of payment means at the POS in terms of usage. However, there is suggestive evidence that it is complementary to card payments and a substitute for paper-based payment instruments. The findings highlight the potential social welfare gains of mobile payment and provide key insights into challenging issues for the private industry sector. This paper furthermore offers novel evidence on the impact of mobile payment on the use and adoption of existing payment instruments and contributes to the literature on consumer payment choice.

This paper estimates the effect of contactless payment on the spending ratio in terms of transactions for different transaction types at the point-of-sale. The specific devices that are investigated are debit and credit cards, to which the feature is embedded. Data is drawn from a national representative survey on consumer payment behavior in the US in 2010. Using propensity score matching to control for selection, the estimation shows that the contactless feature yields to a significant increase in the spending ratio at the point-of-sale for both payment methods. The average treatment effect on the treated for credit and debit cards is roughly 8 and 10 percent, respectively. These findings indicate that the private industry can highly benefit from the innovation with respect to new revenue streams. This paper contributes to the existing literature in payment economics by analyzing one of the most recent payment products.