by Ronald J. Mann
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521866111
PRICE: $65.00
PAGES: 250 pp
PUBLICATION DATE: September 2006
Order from Amazon
Order from Barnes & Noble
Reviews
"Last week, Ronald Mann (University of Texas at Austin) announced the release of his book Charging Ahead:
“[Charging Ahead] provides a comprehensive look at the policy implications of credit cards, weaving together empirical analysis, historical information about the rise and global deployment of credit cards and debit cards, and incisive analysis of the policy implications of their use.”
I had an opportunity to read the book over the last week, and I highly recommend it. While Mann is supportive of the elimination of the no-surcharge rule and other related legal obstacles that disallow merchants pricing products to include the true cost of payment method used, he focuses on the problems with the Issuer - Cardholder interface. While there has been a lot of discussion (for example see Levitin or many of the posts in Aneace’s Blog) on the interchange fees (Network/Issuer - Merchant interface) and surcharging (Merchant - Cardholder interface), Mann gives us tremendous insight (empirically and otherwise) into this other dimension in the payment card love triangle (Network - Merchant - Carholder).
Whether a truly free market even exists in payment cards or not, Mann argues persuasively that payment cards are fair game for increased regulation given that the true social costs of card use are not internalized within the system. At the same time, Mann recognizes the efficiency that payments cards provide as both a method of payment and ready consumer credit as generally a good thing and therefore potential knee-jerk policies that may impact that efficiency should be frowned upon. Mann’s recommendations include such things as creating more uniform cardholder agreements, shifting disclosures closer to the point of sale, eliminating rewards programs and mandatory minimum repayment levels.
All of this is very timely considering such recent news such as the following:
Shell Platinum MasterCard Triples Rebates For New Card Holders
New Credit Card Payment Option - Pick Your Minimum Payment Percentage"
Payments Intelligence
