Convergence of European retail payments

Emmi Martikainen, Heiko Schmiedel and Tuomas Takalo

Journal of Banking & Finance, 2015, vol. 50, issue C, 81-91

Abstract: We estimate convergence in the European retail payments market during the period 1995–2011 for the most popular retail payment instruments: cash, debit card, credit card, direct debit, credit transfer, cheque and e-money. To estimate convergence, we employ the concepts of beta and sigma convergence. There is some evidence of convergence for all payment instruments, except for cheques and e-money. The results suggest that the cross-country dispersion of the use of payment instruments has declined over time in Europe, and the pace of convergence has picked up since the introduction of the single currency. We also find evidence for beta convergence for card payments, direct debits and credit transfers. The results indicate that convergence in European retail payments has progressed despite the financial crisis.

Keywords: Retail payments; Convergence; Financial integration; SEPA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F20 G20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426614003215
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Convergence in European retail payments (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:50:y:2015:i:c:p:81-91

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2014.09.021

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Banking & Finance is currently edited by Ike Mathur

More articles in Journal of Banking & Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().