Are wildcard events on infrastructure systems opportunities for transformational change?

Infrastructure systems face a number of pressing challenges relating to demographics, environment, finance and governance pressures. Furthermore, infrastructure mediates the way in which everyday lives are conducted; their form and function creating a persistence of unsustainable practice and behaviour that cannot be changed even if change is desired. There is a need to find means by which this obduracy can be broken so that new, more sustainable futures can be planned. This paper develops a methodology, taking concepts from both engineering and social science. Wild cards, or physical disruptions, are used to ‘destructively test’ complex infrastructure systems and the multi-level perspective is used as a framework for analysing the resulting data. This methodology was used to examine a number of case studies, and with focus groups consisting of a range of different infrastructure providers and managers, to gain a better understanding of systems’ socio-technical characteristics and behaviours. A number of impactful ‘intervention points’ emerged that offered the opportunity to promote radical changes towards configurations of infrastructure systems that provide for ‘less’ physical infrastructure. This paper also examines the utility of wild cards as enablers of transition to these ‘less’ configurations and demonstrates how a ‘wild card scenario’ can be used to co-design infrastructure adaptation from with both infrastructure providers and users.     

我国跨境资金流动外汇管理政策盲点问题研究

本文从强化跨境资金流动监管的角度,论述了外汇管理政策盲点存在的必然性,具体从离岸账户、转口贸易、短期外债展期、境内留置利润、境内外币卡和组合类贸易融资产品等六个方面对外汇管理政策盲点问题进行了剖析,最后从完善制度建设等角度提出了相关建议。     

储值卡的支付信用风险问题探析

近年来,许多地区发生了储值卡支付信用风险事件.这主要是因为当前购物卡监管制度缺失,商家可以不受限制发行储值卡募集资金,从而引发支付信用风险.本文从厦门储值卡支付信用风险事件,深入分析储值卡发展状况,剖析储值卡存在的问题,同时借鉴国外储值卡管理经验,提出制定储值卡管理法规、明确储值卡监管主体等,加强储值卡支付信用风险管理的对策建议.     

What price loyalty? A fresh look at loyalty programs in the credit card industry

There is controversy about the effects of loyalty programs in the customer relationship management literature. Although some managers and researchers believe that customer loyalty created through loyalty programs leads to higher firm profits, others have found evidence that loyalty programs do not have a positive effect on firm's profits. In this article, we present our findings regarding the effect of reward cards and affinity cards on customer profitability in the context of credit card industry. We find surprising evidence that customers who own either a reward card or an affinity card generate significantly less profit than those customers who do not have these cards. Equally puzzling is the fact that these customers also have lower average lifetime with the firm. This leads us to a puzzle as to why these practices are widely prevalent in the industry. We find that loyalty cards provide value to the issuers in terms of risk management. They serve as a mechanism to reduce the risk associated with more profitable customers by attracting less risky customers. Thus, through loyalty cards the financial institution is able to balance out the total risk of the portfolio of customers by acquiring customers, who although less profitable, are less risky.     

浅析高校内证卡使用问题及其解决措施

证卡和票据曾经是高校内身份识别和消费的主要方式,现介绍高校内现有证卡和票据使用现状及存在的问题,分析其原因,提出基于校园一卡通系统的解决方案,总结了使用效果,并对下一步工作进行了展望。     

信用卡、风险应对与城镇家庭股市参与

信用卡市场的发展有利于家庭平滑消费,但是否会影响家庭的投资决策尚缺少事实检验。基于中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)2011和2013年的调查数据,本文首次检验了信用卡对城镇家庭股市投资的影响。研究发现:(1)控制家庭财富、融资渠道、社会资本等特征,持有信用卡在边际上促进了家庭的股市参与率,股市投资额取决于信用额度。(2)中国信用卡市场的发展,并未像流动性约束理论预测的可以平滑消费,反而刺激了家庭风险性资产的配置,最终提高了储蓄率。原因在于,中国家庭更多地将信用卡作为应对未来短期突发性风险的金融工具,从而在当期将更多资产配置在风险资产上,以实现资本积累。使用信用卡数目、信用额度等多种衡量方式,并采用工具变量法(IV)和面板数据固定效应模型等解决内生性问题后,该结论稳健。该研究有助于理解信用卡在中国家庭投资决策的作用,并为流动性约束或有限股市参与假说提供中国经验。     

支付系统安全控制研究

现代支付系统最主要特征之一就是充分利用现代化信息技术,实现支付信息的高效传输、处理和存储。随着科学技术的高速发展和信息技术的广泛运用,支付系统面临的运行风险也日益严重。近日美国信用卡个人数据信息泄露事件,为支付系统安全控制敲响了警钟。本文根据国际信息安全管理标准,分析和总结了我国支付系统存在的弱点与威胁,研究了对威胁进行评估的定量方法,并提出了我国支付系统安全控制方案。     

Pricing of payment cards, competition, and efficiency: a possible guide for SEPA

This paper analyzes equilibrium pricing of payment cards and welfare consequences of payment card competition. In particular, we model competition between debit and credit cards. The paper argues that optimal consumer and merchant fees must take safety, income uncertainty, default risk, and the merchant’s handling cost of cash into account. Market segmentation where debit and credit cards serve different merchant segments yields a preferred “payment mix”. However, when markets are segmented, payment card fees do not necessarily reach their socially efficient levels. Hence, thoughtful regulatory intervention regarding merchant fees may still be necessary to raise total surplus.     

Price incentives and consumer payment behaviour

In this paper we estimate the effect of particular price incentives on consumer payment patterns using transaction-level data. We find that participation in a loyalty program and access to an interest-free period tend to increase credit card use at the expense of alternative payment methods, such as debit cards and cash. Interestingly though, the pattern of substitution from cash and debit cards differs according to the price incentive. An implication of the findings is that the Reserve Bank reforms of the Australian payments system are likely to have influenced observed payment patterns.     

Private cards and the bypass of payment systems by merchants

This paper studies the incentives of a merchant to bypass a payment platform by issuing private cards. In our model, a payment platform allocates the total cost of a card transaction between a monopolistic issuer and a monopolistic acquirer by choosing an “interchange fee”. We determine how the level of the interchange fee impacts a merchant’s decision to issue private cards, if there are strategic interactions between merchants. We prove that the payment platform can only deter entry by lowering the level of the interchange fee. If the payment platform chooses to accommodate entry, we find that the total user surplus increases, but that entry is beneficial to social welfare only if the entry cost is sufficiently low.     

The economics of credit cards,debit cards and ATMs: A survey and some new evidence

This paper provides a critical survey of the large and diffuse literature on credit cards, debit cards and ATMs. We argue that because there are still many outstanding issues and questions about the pricing, use and substitutability of these payment mechanisms, that there are significant further opportunities for research in these areas. A large number of questions are examined in this survey, including the pricing of credit cards, the impact of networks on the provision and pricing of ATMs, as well as the tradeoffs that consumers make between different types of payment mechanism, including debit cards, credit cards and ATMs. Importantly, this paper is also amongst the first to provide new evidence on this latter question from bank level data (from Spain). We conclude that point of sale (debit card) and ATM transactions are substitutes, and that ATM surcharges impacts point of sale volume significantly.     

世界银行卡产业发展研究

随着全球经济的复苏和银行卡受理环境的改善,近年来世界银行卡产业保持着迅捷的增长势头,银行卡作为支付手段对现金和支票的替代作用也日益明显。本文从总量指标和人均指标两方面对当前世界主要国家和地区银行卡产业的交易状况进行了实证研究,分析了全球银行卡市场在区域和品牌上的分布结构,并对该产业近年来的发展趋势进行了总结与探讨。     

EMV认证的实现

首先简要介绍EMV认证是全球公认的统一标准,金融系统设备招标的必备条件。加之目前的磁条卡存在很多漏洞,出现很多所谓的“高科技”犯罪案件,所以磁条卡向智能卡过渡是必然的趋势。然后介绍了EMV认证中读卡机具非接Levell各个部分的实现。     

US partisan conflict uncertainty and households' access to bank credit: Evidence from UK survey data

This paper explores how US political uncertainty, stemming from partisan conflict, affects UK households' access to bank credit. Using data from a unique UK survey database and the US news-based Partisan Conflict Index developed by Azzimonti (2018), the findings document that US partisan policy uncertainty negatively affects UK households' access to loans and credit cards. Banks' increased caution on deal selection also appears to be an underlying channel through which partisan political uncertainty can affect lending activities. Further evidence suggests that this partisan uncertainty also increases loan interest rates.     

Acquisition,affinity and rewards: Do they stay or do they go?

Customer relationship management seeks to understand how to generate profitable customers who enter into a long-term relationship with a firm. In this paper, we examine the role of modes of acquisition and retention programmes on customer lifetime in the context of a credit card issuing bank. While other papers have studied retention programmes such as loyalty card and reward card, there is no published study in the credit card context. Using a rich data set on nearly 5,000 customers observed over a three-year period, we are able to provide detailed insights about the efficacy of these strategies. We show that affinity cards customers and customers acquired through direct mail have longer lifetimes. We also find that reward card programmes generate customers with a shorter lifetime. Finally we re-examine the link between long-life customers and profitability and find that the relationship is weak, consistent with recent findings.     

Expert Judgments Regarding Risks Associated with Salmon Aquaculture Practices in British Columbia

Making sound decisions about managing ecological risks necessarily involves relying on judgments by technical specialists informed by the best available scientific evidence. Yet, organizing those judgments in ways to assess the relative risks of different components of a technology, and considering priorities in managing those risks, is a difficult and under‐explored aspect of environmental management. In this study, we elicited the judgments of scientists associated with the salmon aquaculture industry in British Columbia in order to learn their expert viewpoints of potential risks. This paper presents survey results regarding structured judgments provided by scientists engaged in studies associated with aquaculture or preserving wild stocks of Pacific salmon species. There were statistically significant differences regarding judgments of the risks of various current aquaculture practices on wild salmon stocks. It was possible to rank the means of scientific judgment scores to prioritize these risks. Differences in rankings were location and context specific.     

Is mandated independence necessary for audit quality?

Independence (in fact as well as in appearance) is widely thought to be necessary for the quality of audits, and audit quality is often equated with independence. Private incentives to demand (and supply) independent certification of financial statements are thought to be insufficient, thus the need to mandate independence through regulation. This study presents data from a field experiment on the unregulated market for certification of baseball cards to assess the role of independence vis-à-vis other auditor attributes such as competence, price, and service on audit quality. In our field experiment, we examine prices of baseball cards sold on eBay with or without third party certification. In addition, the certifier was either independent or deeply immersed in providing other services to market participants. We find that market participants pay a significant premium for certified cards. Certifiers who are deeply immersed (and therefore apparently less independent) also provide higher quality service in the form of being stricter graders, command larger price premiums, and dominate in market share. Implications for independence and audit quality are discussed.     

On competition,risk, and hidden assets in the market for bank credit cards

The market for credit cards has been the subject of recent attention and controversy because of ‘high’ profits earned on credit cards and substantial premiums on the resale of credit-card receivables. This paper estimates risk—return profiles for credit-card banks and explores the role of intangible assets in determining resale premiums on credit-card receivables. In addition, the effects on the resale market of securitization and the opportunity cost of acquiring new accounts are analyzed. Using alternative measures of risk and alternative control groups, we find, for the years 1989 to 1995, that credit-card banks earned significantly higher returns on assets but that these returns were associated with greater risk-taking. Analysis of premia for the years 1993 to 1995 suggest that acquiring banks pay higher premia for mid-sized regional accounts than for larger, national portfolios, perhaps because of richer cross-selling opportunities.     

How effective are rewards programs in promoting payment card usage? Empirical evidence

Card issuers have mainly relied on rewards programs as their main strategy to increase usage. However, there is scarce evidence on the effectiveness of these programs. This paper is addressing two topics which could have important managerial and public policy implications: (i) it estimates the impact of rewards on the use of cards and (ii) it quantifies their economic effects in terms of the cash substitution. We find that rewards may significantly modify choice for card payments. Their economic impact also varies significantly across types of rewards and merchant activities. Additionally, rewards seem to be more effective for debit cards.     

盒融IC卡行业应用的范畴和策略

国家明确提出,“要以行业应用为落脚点,实现与互联网支付、移动支付等创新型应用的整合。“十二五”期间全面推进金融Ic卡应用,社保应用要覆盖60％的人口、居民健康卡持有率达80％”,国内商业银行正面临业务发展的战略机遇。在清晰厘定金融IC卡行业应用范畴边界的基础上,商业银行应以战略远景为指引,针对金融Ic卡行业应用的不同类型和特点,采取最有利于发挥优势的实施策略,探索形成适合自身实际情况的业务发展模式,以促进整体价值的持续增加。