nep-pay New Economics Papers
on Payment Systems and Financial Technology
Issue of 2026–01–12
ten papers chosen by
Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, Northumbria University


  1. Cryptocurrency Technology and The International Monetary System By Losada Baños, José Javier
  2. SoK: Stablecoins in Retail Payments By Yuquan Li; Yuexin Xiang; Qin Wang; Tsz Hon Yuen; Andreas Deppeler; Jiangshan Yu
  3. Managing Ambidexterity in a Digital Entrepreneurship Context : The Case of Fintech Firms By J. Moussavou; J. Y. Lee
  4. Organizing in a fluid social media sphere: the empowering and disempowering effects of ownership, openness, and stakeholder engagement through an affordance perspective By Costanza Sartoris; Lydia Milly Certa; Sasha Piccione
  5. The Effect of Mobile Banking Access on Bank Entry and Exit in the Southern Great Plains By Welch, Katie; Van Leuven, Andrew; Lambert, Dayton M.
  6. When Interoperability Increases Market Power: Evidence from Perus Instant Payment Systems By Burga, Carlos; Cespedes, Jacelly; Parra, Carlos R; Cerón, Marcos; Quispe, Isaí
  7. Digital securities, analog problems: how tokenisation undermines the rights of investors By Keijse, Thomas; Micheler, Eva
  8. Роль золота в трансформации глобального финансового и политического порядка By Levers, Jimmy Thierry
  9. The Rise of Specialized Financial Products By Ana Babus; Matias Marzani; Sara Moreira
  10. AutoQuant: An Auditable Expert-System Framework for Execution-Constrained Auto-Tuning in Cryptocurrency Perpetual Futures By Kaihong Deng

  1. By: Losada Baños, José Javier
    Abstract: Throughout the millennial history of money, various payment instruments have been developed: some designed to facilitate economic transactions and others to preserve accumulated wealth, adapting in each historical period to the conditions and capabilities of the society of their time. In this context, the maturity achieved by the cryptocurrency industry over the last five years, especially in areas such as blockchain, oracle networks, self-custody, multi-chain environments, and decentralized applications —DApps—combined with today's colossal data processing capacity, opens up the possibility of applying these 21st-century technologies to the construction of a new international monetary system. This article explains how to use these telematic tools to achieve this, as well as their implications in the financial and economic arena, including enhanced financial stability and the recognition of the Fundamental Right of People to Safeguard the Wealth.
    Keywords: monetary system, Bitcoin, blockchain, self-custody, cryptocurrency, financial stability, Fundamental Right of People to Safeguard the Wealth
    JEL: E42 E59 F31 G21 G23 O33
    Date: 2025–12–06
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:127207
  2. By: Yuquan Li; Yuexin Xiang; Qin Wang; Tsz Hon Yuen; Andreas Deppeler; Jiangshan Yu
    Abstract: Stablecoins have emerged as a rapidly growing digital payment instrument, raising the question of whether blockchain-based settlement can function as a substitute for incumbent card networks in retail payments. This Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) provides a systematic comparison between stablecoin payment arrangements and card networks by situating both within a unified analytical framework. We first map their respective payment infrastructures, participant roles, and transaction lifecycles, highlighting fundamental differences in how authorization, settlement, and recourse are organized. Building on this mapping, we introduce the CLEAR framework, which evaluates retail payment systems across five dimensions: cost, legality, experience, architecture, and reach. Our analysis shows that stablecoins deliver efficient, continuous, and programmable settlement, often compressing rail-level merchant fees and enabling 24/7 value transfer. However, these advantages are accompanied by an inversion of the traditional pricing and risk-allocation structure. Card networks internalize consumer-side frictions through subsidies, standardized liability rules, and post-transaction recourse, thereby supporting mass-market adoption. Stablecoin arrangements, by contrast, externalize transaction fees, error prevention, and dispute resolution to users, intermediaries, and courts, resulting in weaker consumer protection, higher cognitive burden at the point of interaction, and fragmented acceptance. Accordingly, stablecoins exhibit a conditional comparative advantage in closed-loop environments, cross-border corridors, and high-friction payment contexts, but remain structurally disadvantaged as open-loop retail payment instruments.
    Date: 2025–12
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2601.00196
  3. By: J. Moussavou; J. Y. Lee (Audencia Business School)
    Keywords: Digital Entrepreneurship, Fintech, Innovation, Organizational Ambidexterity, Mixed Ambidexterity
    Date: 2024–09
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05424256
  4. By: Costanza Sartoris (Venice School of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venice); Lydia Milly Certa (NEOMA Business School); Sasha Piccione (IMT Atlantique and Venice School of Management, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)
    Abstract: Examining social media architecture and affordances, this paper explores three key dimensions central to the functioning of social media in democratic societies: ownership, openness, and stakeholder engagement. The aim is to propose a new research agenda that bridges critical management and organizational studies with social media studies, examining how the architectural ownership choices of certain social media platforms shape the intertwined dimensions of openness and stakeholder engagement. First, it briefly defines what social media platforms afford in the public sphere. Afterwards, it examines openness and stakeholder engagement as fluid organizing principles adopted by users on social media platforms. Then it explores how social media ownership can lead to either empowering or disempowering effects on the community of users. Lastly, it offers a list of research questions for potential paths forward in empirical research.
    Keywords: Social Media, Affordance, Ownership, Openness, Stakeholder engagement, Democracy, Power
    Date: 2025–09
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vnm:wpdman:225
  5. By: Welch, Katie; Van Leuven, Andrew; Lambert, Dayton M.
    Abstract: Bank or branch closure resulting in loss of access to lending institutions has been linked to limited economic growth and long-term vitality of a region (Nguyen, 2019; Conroy et al., 2017). Since the 1980’s, changes in banking, such as higher efficiency in branches, greater numbers of ATMs, and the emergence of alternative banking forms, coincided with declines in the total number of physical banks; by 1997, the total number of banking institutions had declined by 33% in the US and 40% in the Southern Great Plains (SGP) (Spong and Harvey, 1998). Following the advent of smart technology in the late 2000s, alternative banking options have become even more readily available with over half of all commercial banks in the United States offering online banking services by the end of 2003. In 2022, surveys found that 72% of banking Americans preferred to access their accounts through mobile or online portals (ABA, 2022). The availability and adoption of mobile technology begs the question, are brick-and-mortar bank entries and exits affected by technologies that increase mobile banking access? This study estimates the relationship between mobile banking access and bank entry and exit in the SGP, defined as the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. These findings will lend insight to the question of whether there are areas without banking access or if the availability of mobile banking impacts physical bank presence.
    Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban Development
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea25:361114
  6. By: Burga, Carlos; Cespedes, Jacelly; Parra, Carlos R; Cerón, Marcos; Quispe, Isaí
    Abstract: Instant payment systems have rapidly gained global traction by enhancing transaction efficiency, yet evidence remains limited on how their designparticularly interoperabilityshapes market structure. We exploit Perus 2023 interoperability mandate as a quasi-natural experiment using a difference-in-differences design. Mandated interoperability increased deposit market concentration by approximately 2%. Incumbent banks linked to the dominant digital wallet expanded their deposit market share by nearly 10% and reduced deposit interest rates by 5080 basis points. We also observe more branch closures in high-adoption areas and declining microcredit. A model explains these results through an “amenity shock, ” boosting digital wallet convenience for all adopters. Due to network externalities, the largest incumbent wallet captures a disproportionate share of new users in dual-platform markets an “amenity effect” that ultimately increases concentration. By contrast, in single-platform regions, interoperability lowers barriers for new providers an “entry effect” that spurs competition and erodes incumbent dominance. Our results show that this amenity effect in dual-platform cities outweighs the entry effect elsewhere. Overall, our findings show competitive effects of interoperability mandates critically depend on initial market structure and distribution of platform market shares.
    JEL: E42 J31 O33
    Date: 2025–12
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14435
  7. By: Keijse, Thomas; Micheler, Eva
    Abstract: The intermediated holding of investment securities through tiered custody chains undermines the rights of investors. Distributed ledger technology offers potential solutions through direct investor-issuer connections, but emerging regulatory frameworks paradoxically recreate intermediation while providing weaker safeguards than for traditional securities. This article examines how current legal approaches to tokenised securities risk creating worse outcomes for investors, particularly retail participants.
    JEL: F3 G3
    Date: 2025–12–31
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129815
  8. By: Levers, Jimmy Thierry (Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia RUDN)
    Abstract: This article investigates the role of gold in the transformation of the global financial and political order, focusing on its relationship with the U.S. dollar during periods of systemic crisis. It assesses whether gold or the dollar provides a more stable reserve asset by analyzing U.S. debt dynamics, BRICS gold accumulation, and recent digital monetary innovations. The study shows that the persistent rise of U.S. public debt, now exceeding $37 trillion, undermines confidence in the dollar’s sustainability despite its continuing dominance as the global reserve currency. In response, BRICS countries increasingly diversify reserves through gold holdings, a practice that functions not only as financial hedging but also as a political act of sovereignty against U.S. monetary coercion and sanctions. However, the absence of a coherent BRICS monetary strategy limits the bloc’s ability to offer a structured alternative to dollar hegemony. At the same time, the United States seeks to reinforce its monetary dominance through regulatory innovation, notably the GENIUS Act, which anchors stablecoins to the dollar. China, by contrast, promotes its digital renminbi (e-CNY) to gradually reduce reliance on dollar-based infrastructures. Together, these dynamics suggest a contested multipolar order where gold regains importance as a political and monetary anchor.
    Date: 2025–12–16
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:grqza_v1
  9. By: Ana Babus; Matias Marzani; Sara Moreira
    Abstract: The variety of financial products available for firms to raise funds has expanded rapidly in recent decades. This paper studies the role of innovations that introduce specialized financial products using a combination of granular data and a parsimonious model of security issuance. We present three key findings. First, differential product adoption across firms explains most of the observed variation in the amounts of funds raised. Second, firms that adopt new products are more successful in raising funds. Third, the funds raised from new financial products are often sourced from numerous highly specialized products, each used by only a few firms.
    JEL: D4 G3 O3
    Date: 2025–12
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34594
  10. By: Kaihong Deng
    Abstract: Backtests of cryptocurrency perpetual futures are fragile when they ignore microstructure frictions and reuse evaluation windows during parameter search. We study four liquid perpetuals (BTC/USDT, ETH/USDT, SOL/USDT, AVAX/USDT) and quantify how execution delay, funding, fees, and slippage can inflate reported performance. We introduce AutoQuant, an execution-centric, alpha-agnostic framework for auditable strategy configuration selection. AutoQuant encodes strict T+1 execution semantics and no-look-ahead funding alignment, runs Bayesian optimization under realistic costs, and applies a two-stage double-screening protocol across held-out rolling windows and a cost-sensitivity grid. We show that fee-only and zero-cost backtests can materially overestimate annualized returns relative to a fully costed configuration, and that double screening tends to reduce drawdowns under the same strict semantics even when returns are not higher. A CSCV/PBO diagnostic indicates substantial residual overfitting risk, motivating AutoQuant as validation and governance infrastructure rather than a claim of persistent alpha. Returns are reported for small-account simulations with linear trading costs and without market impact or capacity modeling.
    Date: 2025–12
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2512.22476

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