Banking and payments

Theme: Cost of payments in Denmark


Abstract icon The Danish Payments Council has surveyed the social costs of payments in Denmark for the most common methods of payment in Denmark, used by citizens and businesses. The results of the survey are presented in a series of analyses from the Danish Payments Council: Costs of Payments in Denmark. Analyses and further information are gathered on this web page.

The Danish Payments Council has surveyed the social costs of payments in Denmark for the most common methods of payment used by citizens and businesses.

This means that the survey covers the vast majority of the payments made by households and retailers and businesses, including both amortisation of loans, rent payments, and daily purchases.

Payments in the survey

 

 

The survey is an updated version of the analysis "Costs of payments in Denmark" published by Danmarks Nationalbank in 2011. In addition to that, the survey is extended with business-to-business (B2B) payments and person-to-person (P2P) transfers.

 

New series of analyses

The results of the survey are presented in a series of analyses from the Danish Payments Council: Costs of payments in Denmark. Analyses and further information are gathered on this web page.

Payments involve considerable economies of scale

This analysis presents the marginal social costs for domestic consumer-to-business,
C2B, payments. The analysis covers cash payments and payment cards.

Business-to-business payments entailed social costs of kr. 4.2 billion

This analysis presents the social costs of domestic business-to-business payments in Denmark. The analysis includes the most common methods of payments between firms which are credit transfers, card payments, and direct debits.

The mobile phone has contributed to reducing the costs of person-to-person payments

This analysis presents for the first time the social costs of domestic per-son-to-person transfers in Denmark. The analysis includes the most com-mon methods of person-to-person transfers: mobile payments, cash payments and credit transfers.

The aggregate costs of payments in Denmark were kr. 15.6 billion in 2016  

The analysis presents the aggregate costs of payments in Denmark. I.e., consumer-to-business payments, business-to-business payments, and person-to-person transfers. In addition, the analysis gives insight into the development in the payments market during the last decade.

The costs of consumer-to-business payments have decreased considerably

This analysis presents the socials costs of domestic consumer-to-business payments in Denmark. In the analysis, cash, payment cards, and the most common payment methods for paying bills are examined.

Background to series on the costs of payments in Denmark

The paper describes the central concepts in the analyses as well as how the Danish Payments Council has collected data for the survey.

Tables annex for the Danish Payments Council's survey of the costs of payments in Denmark
The tables annex gathers the central results from the survey. The same results can be found in the individual analyses. The annex is updated as new analyses are published.

 

 

Print side

What are socials costs?

Social costs are the combined resource costs of the parties involved in a payment. Social costs do not cover transfers between parties as they are a cost to one party and an income to another. For instance, the fee retailers pay to receive card payments is not included in the social costs.

For payment intermediaries and retailers and businesses, the resource costs relate to payroll costs for employees such as cashiers, as well as expenses for equipment, e.g. cash registers and IT systems.

For households, the resource costs of a payment to a large extent relate to the opportunity cost of the time a payment takes. This means that the cost is not money to be paid by the household, but rather a reflection of the value of the time the household spends on making payments.

Why is data from 2016?

All data has been collected specifically for the cost survey with information from the key parties on the Danish payments market. That is why cost surveys are time-consuming work. The Danish Payments Council began its work with the survey in June 2016.