Retail Payments Strategy for the EU versus the challenges of the payment sector

Motivation: The payment services sector has become one of the main areas for the development of financial innovation and the key element of the digital economy. However, the payment services market in the European Union (called the European Payments Market) is still fragmented along national borders, insufficiently integrated, and facing several challenges. Therefore, the newly announced Retail Payments Strategy for the EU is a document of great importance for the future of the entire EU economy, and deserves in-depth study. Aim: The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the trends and challenges identified by the European Commission in the Retail Payments Strategy, and the general directions and proposed actions presented in this document, appropriately reflect the challenges faced by the European payment market. Results: A comparative analysis of the Strategy’s assumptions and proposed actions was conducted, in relation to the identified challenges of the payment sector. The empirical data were derived from a survey of 202 experts from all EU member states, and the UK, Norway and Switzerland, covering all types of bank and non-bank payment market players. The analysis confirmed that the Strategy identified the main challenges and opportunities, in line with the results of the expert survey: the need for further development of open banking; cross-border integration and development of instant payments systems; and ensuring access to the banking payment infrastructure, including contactless and NFC mobile payments. However, the proposed directions of action in selected areas have not been sufficiently rationalised, and most of the actions have been left to be specified in the future. In addition, the Strategy relies mostly on the use of regulatory tools that may limit innovativeness. Although the Commission and the surveyed experts agreed in recognising the challenges related to the increasing role of BigTechs in the payment sector, no comprehensive solution addressing the related challenges was proposed in the Strategy.

Mapping Mobile Payment Adoption: Customers’ Trends and Challenges

The continuous advancement of the mobile technology industry and the wide acceptance of mobile devices worldwide have provided great prospects to customers regarding their monetary transactions. As a result, numerous individuals use their mobile devices, mainly their smartphone; to pay online and even more are expected to take advantage of the mobile payments in the near future. This study conducts an up-to-date review to survey the landscape of individuals’ behavioral intention to adopt m-payments systems and services in the last five years (2015-2019 period). In specific, the aim of this review paper is twofold. First, it collects and summarizes the review papers that focus on customers’ m-payment adoption intention as an umbrella review. Second, it analyzes all recently top quantitative primary research papers that examined the aforementioned topic and presents a detailed examination of their objectives and research outcomes as a scoping review. Both of these analyzes are expected to increase the understanding of m-payments adoption and their underlying factors that influence individuals’ decision to adopt them, as well as reveal research gaps. Consequently, the paper aims to be a useful tool for mapping the research trends in current literature regarding mobile payment.

Tracking the COVID-19 crisis with high-resolution transaction data

Payments systems generate vast amounts of naturally occurring transaction data rarely used for constructing official statistics. We consider billions of transactions from card data from a large bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, as an alternative source of information for measuring consumption. We show, via validation against official consumption measures, that transaction data complements national accounts and consumption surveys. We then analyse the impact of COVID-19 in Spain, and document: (i) strong consumption responses to business closures, but smaller effects for capacity restrictions; (ii) a steeper decline in spending in rich neighbourhoods; (iii) higher mobility for residents of lower-income neighbourhoods, correlating with increased disease incidence.

The Rise of Digital Money

Payments systems around the world are evolving with the emergence of digital money issued by private firms and central banks. We provide a conceptual framework to compare and contrast traditional forms of money with their new digital equivalents. We suggest that some forms of digital money, while less stable as a store of value, could be rapidly adopted given their advantages as a means of payment. We review the benefits and risks that would emerge. One approach to managing risks would be to require full backing of selected digital money with central bank reserves. We call the arrangement synthetic central bank digital currency (sCBDC), a private-public partnership that combines the advantages of private sector innovation and customer orientation with the safety and stability of central bank–backed money. We offer policy considerations, directions for research, and an overview of the literature to date. The analysis of digital currencies is an exciting new field crossing into monetary and financial economics that will reshape the monetary and financial systems for many years to come. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Financial Economics, Volume 13 is March 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Part IV UK Payment and Settlement, 12 UK Payment Systems

This chapter looks at the main provisions of the Banking Act and the 2013 Act, as well as the actions taken by the regulators under these Acts in the present time and in future developments. It discusses payments systems as an essential part of any modern financial market economy that enables the fast and efficient processing of transactions. It also describes the increase in the turnover of payment systems and digitization of the UK economy that made financial institutions and regulators recognize the central importance of payment systems in supporting a technologically enabled global economy. This chapter talks about regulators that are focused both on real time supervision and the modernization and development of the UK's payment systems. It mentions CREST as one of the eight payment systems that are currently recognised by the Treasury.

Some Alternative Monetary Facts

In this paper, we discuss the modern history of monetarism and its alternatives, as well as the changing empirical relationship of various measures of money and inflation. After demonstrating that previous naïve correlations between money and inflation as established in the 20th century literature have largely disappeared, we explain why this cannot be taken as support for an increased reliance on permanent monetary finance. Rather, we argue that rapid technological innovation in payments systems—both public and private—including in global pledged collateral markets, portends a declining demand for central bank liabilities.

The renminbi will gradually check dollar dominance

Significance The share of Chinese central government bonds held by foreigners rose to 8% at end-October, from 1.2% at end-2019 as Chinese stock and bond funds were included in global indexes. The comments of Yi and others give salience to discussion of the renminbi challenging the dollar's pre-eminence as a global currency and reflect Beijing’s concern about US attempts to use the dollar’s dominance to contain its global influence. Impacts US use of financial and economic sanctions will encourage cross-border payments systems that can isolate transactions from the dollar. China will cautiously liberalise its capital account, raise renminbi exchange-rate flexibility and improve liquidity in its bond market. The EU, Switzerland and Japan do not want 'safe-haven' inflows because of the risk of currency appreciation hurting their real economies. At times of financial market stress (eg, COVID-19) the onus is on the Federal Reserve (Fed) to ensure adequate global access to dollars. The build-up of US debt during the pandemic poses a long-term risk to the dollar's status if US growth weakens permanently.

Payments Systems in the NHS

Finance within the NHS is poorly understood by clinicians and the limited engagement of clinical leaders in finance decisions is recognised as a common pitfall in recent inquiries such as the Francis report1 and recent King’s Fund report into financial failure2. The complexity and rapidly changing landscape of financing systems in place across the NHS on a background of complex and transient organisational structure makes it challenging for the patient focused clinician to achieve a working knowledge of finance. This article will discuss various payment mechanism and explore their advantages and disadvantages and then discuss how they have been used on their own or in combination to fund healthcare organisations. In order to provide context for clinicians, we will discuss how the payment contracts influence day to day health service practice.

IS FUTURE A RULE OF DIGITAL CURRENCY???

Digital Currency (DC) is a form of currency that is available in digital or electronic form and not in physical form. Digitalization has remodeled money and payments systems. Although digital money itself is not new to modern economies, digital currencies now facilitate spontaneous peer-to-peer transfers of value in a way that was formerly impossible. Digital currency has already materialized in a variety of contexts. Digital Currency is an extent put away in a dispersed database on the Internet. This study is toted with the objective to highlight the concept of digital currency, its various forms, evolution and growth, global impact, impact during COVID-19 and the future of digital currency. This is an historical descriptive study which flashes the opinions given by distinctive researchers and disparate financial consultants and central banks.

Romania hopes to surmount virus’s expected second wave

Significance Government measures to support workers and companies seem to have worked. With closer state-corporate dialogue established, surveys and some data give grounds for measured optimism that the economy will bounce back later this year, following an expected second-quarter GDP contraction of around 15%. Impacts Digital tax collection and fiscal administration will expand to include more payments systems. Domestic production of PPE and medical supplies has increased significantly. Public investment and state support in the economy will gain ground.