Payment Cards Pricing Patterns: The Role of Antitrust and Regulatory Authorities

19 Pages Posted: 26 Mar 2010

See all articles by Alberto Heimler

Alberto Heimler

Government of the Italian Republic (Italy) - National School of Administration

Date Written: March 18, 2010

Abstract

Antitrust enforcers and regulators are increasingly worried that interchange fees in four-party systems, more than being an instrument for addressing usage externality, had become a collusionary device, setting a floor under which the charges could not go. Competition is not working effectively in card payment systems. The reason is that with the non discrimination rule in place, the cost of payment services is transferred by merchants to all buyers, not just to cardholders. As a result, cardholders (that do not pay for the cost of their choice) tend to use the payment instrument that offers the highest private benefits to them (the one with the better reward system), often the most costly. In turn, issuers tend to offer to consumers the cards that provide the highest interchange fee. This paper shows that eliminating the interchange fee and allowing for both issuers and acquirers to charge cardholders and merchants respectively may lead to the internalization of usage externalities and to markets for payment services to operate more effectively. Furthermore the elimination of the no-discrimination rule may also discipline three party systems, as the Australian example shows.

Suggested Citation

Heimler, Alberto, Payment Cards Pricing Patterns: The Role of Antitrust and Regulatory Authorities (March 18, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1574292 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1574292

Alberto Heimler (Contact Author)

Government of the Italian Republic (Italy) - National School of Administration ( email )

Via dei Robilant
11 - 00135 Rome
Italy
+3906 33565348 (Phone)

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