Pandemic payment patterns

Nicole Jonker, Carin Cruijsen, Michiel Bijlsma and Wilko Bolt ()

Working Papers from DNB

Abstract: COVID-19 has temporarily changed the relative cost and benefits of different payment methods: cash has become more costly in terms of health risks, ease of use and likelihood of acceptance, whereas debit card usage has become less costly. As a result, consumers have shifted away from cash. For some, this may speed up the adoption of electronic payment methods, resulting in a permanent change in payment behaviour. Others will return to their preferred payment method once the influence of COVID-19 on our health and daily lives has faded away. Based on unique payment diary survey data collected among a representative panel of Dutch consumers, we study the shift in payment behaviour and payment preferences during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the start of the lockdown in the Netherlands the likelihood of debit card usage at the expense of cash has increased by 13 percentage points. About 60 percent of this shift has persisted seven months after the start of the pandemic in the Netherlands and appears to be longlived. Also, the pandemic has resulted in a shift in payment preferences towards more contactless payments. Both effects are largest for elderly people.Â

Keywords: COVID-19; consumer payment behaviour; consumption; payment diary data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 E21 E42 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-mac and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.dnb.nl/media/xbrj1xuc/working-paper-no-701.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Pandemic payment patterns (2022)
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:dnb:dnbwpp:701

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from DNB Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by DNB ().