nr 071 - The Effect of Transaction Pricing on the Adoption of Electronic Payments: A Cross-Country Comparison

DNB Working Papers
Date 22 December 2005

Pricing should speed up the substitution of low cost electronic payments for expensive paper-based transactions and cash. But by how much? Norway has explicitly priced individual payment transactions and rapidly shifted to electronic payments while the Netherlands has experienced the same shift without direct pricing. Controlling for differences between countries, we estimate the incremental effect of pricing on the shift to electronic payments. If users strongly value the improved convenience or security of electronic payments, pricing–viewed negatively by most consumers–may not be necessary to ensure rapid adoption of electronic payments. Keywords: electronic payments, transaction pricing, demand elasticity, social benefits. JEL Code: D12, G21