To Surcharge or Not to Surcharge? A Two-Sided Market Perspective of the No-Surcharge Rule
41 Pages Posted: 21 Aug 2011 Last revised: 5 Sep 2011
There are 2 versions of this paper
To Surcharge or Not to Surcharge? A Two-Sided Market Perspective of the No-Surcharge Rule
To Surcharge or Not to Surcharge? A Two-Sided Market Perspective of the No-Surcharge Rule
Date Written: August 19, 2011
Abstract
In Electronic Payment Networks (EPNs) the No-Surcharge Rule (NSR) requires that merchants charge the same final good price regardless of the means of payment chosen by the customer. In this paper, we analyze a three-party model (consumers, merchants, and proprietary EPNs) to assess the impact of a NSR on the electronic payments system, in particular, on competition among EPNs, network pricing to merchants and consumers, EPNs profits, and social welfare.
We show that imposing a NSR has a number of effects. First, it softens competition among EPNs and rebalances the fee structure in favor of cardholders and to the detriment of merchants. Second, we show that the NSR is a profitable strategy for EPNs if and only if the network effect from merchants to cardholders is sufficiently weak. Third, the NSR is socially (un)desirable if the network externalities from merchants to cardholders are sufficiently weak (strong) and the merchants' market power in the goods market is sufficiently high (low). Our policy advice is that regulators should decide on whether the NSR is appropriate on a market-by-market basis instead of imposing a uniform regulation for all markets.
Keywords: Electronic Payment System, Market Power, Network Externalities, No-Surcharge Rule, Regulation, Two-sided Markets, MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discovery
JEL Classification: L13, L42, L80
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
The Determinants of Optimal Interchange Fees in Payment Systems
-
The Determinants of Optimal Interchange Fees in Payment Systems
-
The Neutrality of Interchange Fees in Payment Systems
By Joshua S. Gans and Stephen P. King
-
Regulating Interchange Fees in Payment Systems
By Joshua S. Gans and Stephen P. King
-
Two-Sided Markets, Competitive Bottlenecks and Exclusive Contracts
By Mark Armstrong and Julian Wright
-
An Empirical Analysis of Payment Card Usage
By Marc Rysman
