St. Louis Fed Heads Up Payments Study

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St. Louis Fed Heads Up Payments Study

The dramatic change in the retail payments landscape during the past decade has brought about numerous new and more complex payments, including debit cards, smart cards and e-cash payments over the Internet. To more thoroughly comprehend the issues and implications of these dramatic changes, as well as gain a better understanding of existing payments like checks, cash and ACH transactions, the St. Louis Fed, on behalf of the Federal Reserve System, is leading a national research project to gather data on the use of existing and emerging payments.

Two phases of the study will be conducted in 1999. During the first two quarters of the year, the Fed will partner with Payment Technologies, Inc., to conduct a literature search of existing research on the use of retail payments, technology used to facilitate retail payments and public perceptions about retail payments. It will include reviews on the volume and trends of payment instruments; the attitudes of consumers, businesses and financial institutions; the trends in these attitudes; as well as key factors that influence use of various payment mechanisms.

For the second phase of the project, the Fed again will partner with a firm (yet to be selected) to collect and analyze quantitative data on retail payments. This portion of the research will involve written surveys of consumers, businesses and financial institutions. Results of the study will be made available to the public.

The Fed is conducting this study in response to a request from the Rivlin Committee, a Federal Reserve workgroup established several years ago to examine how the payments system is evolving and what part the Fed might play in the future. The research results will provide a benchmark for the industry and provide input into the Fed's regulatory activities and product development.