Retail Payment Innovations and Cash Usage: Accounting for Attrition Using Refreshment Samples

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We exploit the panel dimension of the Canadian Financial Monitor (CFM) data to estimate the impact of retail payment innovations on cash usage. We estimate a semiparametric panel data model that accounts for unobserved heterogeneity and allows for general forms of non-random attrition. We use annual data from the CFM on the methods of payment and cash usage for the period 2010–12. Estimates based on cross-sectional methods find a large impact of retail payment on cash usage (around 10 percent). However, after correcting for attrition, we find that contactless credit cards and multiple stored-value cards (reloadable) have no significant impact on cash usage, while single-purpose stored-value cards reduce the usage of cash by 2 percent in terms of volume. These results point to the uneven pace of the diffusion of payment innovations, especially contactless credit.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34989/swp-2014-27