Do Newspaper Articles on Card Fraud Affect Debit Card Usage?

This paper investigates the impact of newspaper articles about skimming fraud on debit card usage in the Netherlands, using daily transaction data and daily newspaper announcements from January 1st 2005 to December 31st 2008. Key finding is that articles about skimming fraud significantly affect same day debit card usage. The direction and strength of the media effects strongly depend on the specific characteristics of the publications, such as type of fraud addressed and their position in the newspaper, but above all by the frequency with which they come out. The effects, however, are economically small compared to other factors, such as calendar and holiday effects, and do not sustain or accumulate in the long run. Yet, some first cost calculations demonstrate that the impact of media attention on total retail payments efficiency is not to be underestimated.

[1]  Mario Mazzocchi,et al.  No News is Good News: Stochastic Parameters Versus Media Coverage Indices in Demand Models after Food Scares , 2006 .

[2]  Jonathan Zinman,et al.  Limited and Varying Consumer Attention: Evidence from Shocks to the Salience of Bank Overdraft Fees , 2011 .

[3]  N. Jonker,et al.  Explaining cash usage in the Netherlands: the effect of electronic payment instruments , 2007 .

[4]  Teresa Serra,et al.  MODELING THE IMPACT OF FOOD SAFETY INFORMATION ON MEAT DEMAND IN SPAIN , 2008 .

[5]  Steven Brakman,et al.  The impact of newspapers on consumer confidence: does spin bias exist? , 2004, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[6]  John P. Hoehn,et al.  The Impact of Health Risk Information on Food Demand: A Case Study of Alar and Apples , 1991 .

[7]  Carlos A. Arango,et al.  The Role of Convenience and Risk in Consumers' Means of Payment , 2009 .

[8]  Nicole Jonker,et al.  The impact of survey design on research outcomes: A case study of seven pilots measuring cash usage in the Netherlands , 2009 .

[9]  Jukka M. Vesala,et al.  Cash, Paper, and Electronic Payments: A Cross-Country Analysis , 1996 .

[10]  Eric T. Swanson.  Let’s Twist Again: A High-Frequency Event-Study Analysis of Operation Twist and Its Implications for QE2 , 2011 .

[11]  W. Bolt,et al.  Consumer Choice and Merchant Acceptance of Payment Media , 2008 .

[12]  J. Haan,et al.  Contagion during the Greek sovereign debt crisis , 2013 .

[13]  A. Kosse.  The Safety of Cash and Debit Cards: A Study on the Perception and Behaviour of Dutch Consumers , 2010 .

[14]  Lei Zhou,et al.  The Economic Cost of Publicly Announced Information Security Breaches: Empirical Evidence from the Stock Market , 2003, J. Comput. Secur..

[15]  Francesco Lippi,et al.  Financial Innovation and the Transactions Demand for Cash , 2007 .

[16]  Ron Borzekowski,et al.  The Choice at the Checkout: Quantifying Demand Across Payment Instruments , 2006 .

[17]  Scott D. Schuh,et al.  Why are (Some) Consumers (Finally) Writing Fewer Checks?: The Role of Payment Characteristics , 2009 .

[18]  H. Schmiedel,et al.  The Social and Private Costs of Retail Payment Instruments: A European Perspective , 2012, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[19]  G. G. Ide,et al.  Debit or Credit , 1919, The Psychological clinic.

[20]  Nicole Jonker,et al.  Payment Instruments as Perceived by Consumers – Results from a Household Survey , 2007 .

[21]  Lola Hernández,et al.  Cash usage in the Netherlands: How much, where, when, who and whenever one wants? , 2012 .

[22]  John R. Schroeter,et al.  Television Advertising and Beef Demand: An Econometric Analysis of 'Split-Cable' Household Panel Scanner Data , 1992 .

[23]  H. White.  A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity , 1980 .

[24]  P. He,et al.  Money, Banking, and Monetary Policy , 2006 .

[25]  T. Marsh,et al.  Does Food Safety Information Impact U.S. Meat Demand , 2004 .

[26]  J. de Haan,et al.  The Importance of Being Vigilant: Has ECB Communication Influenced Euro Area Inflation Expectations? , 2007, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[27]  H. Brits,et al.  Payments are no free lunch , 2005 .

[28]  Carin van der Cruijsen,et al.  The Impact of Central Bank Transparency on Inflation Expectations , 2007 .

[29]  Eileen O. van Ravenswaay,et al.  Sales Loss Determination in Food Contamination Incidents: An Application to Milk Bans in Hawaii , 1988 .

[30]  Eiri Elvestad,et al.  Newspaper Readers in Europe , 2008 .

[31]  Julia S. Cheney.  Supply- and Demand-Side Developments Influencing Growth in the Debit Market , 2006 .

[32]  David B. Humphrey,et al.  Retail payments: New contributions, empirical results, and unanswered questions , 2010 .

[33]  Marno Verbeek,et al.  A Guide to Modern Econometrics , 2000 .

[34]  David Bounie,et al.  Cash, Check or Bank Card? The Effects of Transaction Characteristics on the Use of Payment Instruments , 2006 .

[35]  Carlo Rosa,et al.  The Impact of Central Bank Announcements on Asset Prices in Real Time , 2006 .

[36]  A. Saunders,et al.  The Impact of Wealth on Inattention: Evidence from Credit Card Repayments , 2008 .

[37]  Roger A. Dahlgran,et al.  The demand impacts of chicken contamination publicity-a case study , 2002 .

[38]  J. Durbin,et al.  Testing for serial correlation in least squares regression. I. , 1950, Biometrika.

[39]  Chris Chatfield,et al.  Introduction to Statistical Time Series. , 1976 .

[40]  David B. Humphrey,et al.  Transaction Pricing and the Adoption of Electronic Payments: A Cross-Country Comparison , 2012 .

[41]  Andrew T. Ching,et al.  Payment Card Rewards Programs and Consumer Payment Choice , 2008 .

[42]  Trevor Young,et al.  The impact of BSE on the demand for beef and other meats in Great Britain , 1996 .

[43]  Marc Rysman.  *An Empirical Analysis of Payment Card Usage , 2007 .

[44]  C. Kahn,et al.  Why pay? An introduction to payments economics , 2009 .

[45]  Arthur H. Miller,et al.  Type-Set Politics: Impact of Newspapers on Public Confidence * , 1979 .

[46]  N. Jonker,et al.  Estimating Cash Usage: The Impact of Survey Design on Research Outcomes , 2013 .

[47]  P. Franses,et al.  The effectiveness of high-frequency direct-response commercials , 2012 .

[48]  S. Chakravorti,et al.  Whither Loose Change? The Diminishing Demand for Small-Denomination Currency , 2009 .

[49]  A. Tansel.  Cigarette Demand, Health Scares and Education in Turkey , 1993 .

[50]  Paulo M.M. Rodrigues,et al.  Calendar effects in daily ATM withdrawals , 2010 .