Will we pay the same way? Empirical evidence of payment behaviours convergence on EMU panel data

The purpose of this study is to analyze the observed changes in payment behaviours by underlining the influence of factors such as financial opening, regulations and technological innovation. We show how forces acting in order to mould the national retail banking markets into a Single Payment Area (SPA) within the European Monetary Union (EMU) have impacted the payment instruments demand. We analyse the integration process and measure the importance of its major steps by testing the convergence of payment behaviours. We develop a model of conditional convergence concerning the use of five payment instruments: cash, card, cheque, credit transfer, and direct debit. The tests of conditional convergence are carried out using the techniques of instrumental variables on annual panel data in EMU. The results demonstrate that convergence occurs on demand for all payment methods except cheque.