Chapter Two
Money and the Payments System
Learning Objectives
Students will establish an understanding of:
1. Money and its functions
2. Payments system today and tomorrow
3. Money links: inflation and economic growth
Money and How We Use It
• Money is an asset that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services or
repayment of debt.
• Income is a flow of earnings over time, where wealth is the value of assets minus liabilities.
• Money is one of those assets.
Money and How We Use It
Money has three characteristics:
1. It is a means of payment 2. It is a unit of account, and 3. It is a store of value.
The first of these characteristics is the most important
Money and How We Use It
Means of Payment
• People insist on payment in money.
– Barter requires a “double coincidence of wants”.
• Money is easier and finalizes payments so there is no further claim on buyers and
sellers.
• The increase in the numbers of buyers and sellers requires something like “money” to make transactions smoother.
Money and How We Use It
Unit of Account
• Money is used to quote prices and record debts - it is a standard of value.
• Prices provide the information needed to ensure resources are allocated to their best uses.
• Using dollars makes relative price comparisons easier.
• When you shop, should you use a debit card or a credit card?
• A debit card works like a check only faster.
– Funds are immediately removed from your account.
• A credit card makes a deferred payment.
– If not paid on time, there is a late fee.
– If not paid fully, there is interest on the debt.
– But if you do pay on time and fully, it is an interest free loan for a period of time.
– Credit cards allow you to build a credit history.
Money and How We Use It
Store of Value
• A means of payment has to be durable and
capable of transferring purchasing power from one day to the next.
• Paper currency does degrade, but is accepted at face value in transactions.
• Other forms of wealth are also a store of value: stocks, bonds, houses, etc.
Money and How We Use It
Store of Value (cont.)
• Although other stores of value are
sometimes better than money, we hold money because it is liquid.
• Liquidity is a measure of the ease with which an asset can be turned into a
means of payment.
– The more costly it is to convert an asset into money, the less liquid it is.
Money and How We Use It
Store of Value (cont.)
• Financial institutions use:
– Market liquidity - the ability to sell assets for money.
– Funding liquidity - ability to borrow money to buy securities or make loans.
The Payments System
• The payments system is a web of
arrangements that allow for the exchange of goods and services, as well as assets.
– The efficient operation of the economy depends on the payments system.
• Money is at the heart of the payments system.
The Payments System
The possible methods of payment are:
1. Commodity and Fiat Monies 2. Checks
3. Electronic Payments
Commodity and Fiat Monies
• Commodity monies are things with intrinsic value.
– Included items like silk and salt.
• To be successful, a commodity money must be:
– Usable by most people,
– Can be made into standardized quantities, – Durable,
– Easily transportable, and – Divisible into smaller units.
Commodity and Fiat Monies
• Gold has been the most common commodity money as it meets these requirements.
• In 1661, Stockholm Banco issued Europe's first paper money
– King of Sweden printed too many to try to finance a war and the bank failed.
• In 1775, the Continental Congress of the
United States of America issued “continentals”
to finance the Revolutionary War.
– Both governments issued too much and the currency became worthless.
Commodity and Fiat Monies
• Because of the failures, people became suspicious of government-issued paper money.
• In 1862, the Confederate and the Union
governments printed money with no explicit backing.
• After the Civil War, the US reverted to using gold as money.
Commodity and Fiat Monies
• Gold coins and notes, backed by gold, were used into the 20th century.
• Today’s paper money is called fiat money, because its value comes from
government decree, or fiat.
• We are willing to accept these bills as payment because the US government stands behind its paper money.
• In the end, money is about trust.
Commodity and Fiat Monies
• Today, some critics claim the US should return to the gold standard.
– There is fear of governments issuing too much paper money.
• A gold standard may not be time consistent.
– In a crisis, a government can renege on the use of a gold standard to stabilize the economy.
– Movement away from the gold standard was prompted by the Great Depression.
• A fiat currency must be limited in volume of circulation to be credible.
Checks
• A check is an instruction to the bank to take funds from your account and transfer them to another account.
– A check is therefore not a final payment as currency is - it sets in motion a series of
transactions.
• The series of transactions put in motion can be seen in Figure 2.1: The Path of a Paper Check
Figure 2.1: The Path of a Paper
Check
• Why have checks not disappeared?
– Checks are legal proof of payment.
– In 2004 the Check 21 Act went into effect
• Banks can transmit digital images which serve as substitutes for paper checks
– Electronic mechanisms for clearing checks have lowered costs and kept checks as an attractive means of payment.
Electronic Payments
• Electronic payments take the form of:
– Credit and debit cards
– Electronic funds transfers – Stored-value card
– E-money
Electronic Payments
• Debit Cards
– Works like a check - tells the bank to transfer funds from your account to another.
– After 2007, the use of debit cards increased significantly
• Credit Cards
– A promise by a bank to lend the cardholder money to make a purchase.
– They do not represent money.
Electronic Payments
• Electronic funds transfers
– Movements of funds directly from one account to another.
– Most common form is the automated clearinghouse transaction (ACH).
• Used for recurring payments like paychecks or utility bills.
• Have surpassed the value of checks
– Banks use electronic transfers for bank to bank transactions, sending money through Fedwire.
Electronic Payments
• Stored-value card
– Take it to a bank or an ATM, transfer money to the card, then use the card at a merchant.
– Limited usefulness so far, although use has gorwn rapidly.
– Limited in what can be purchased with them.
– Require specific hardware by businesses
Electronic Payments
• E-money
– Can be used to pay for purchases on the Internet or by mobile phone.
– You open an account by transferring funds to the issuer of the e-money.
– When shopping online, you instruct the issuer to send your e-money to the merchant.
– Really a form of private money, so not guaranteed by the government
• Market liquidity and funding liquidity are both needed to market financial markets function smoothly.
• 2007-2009 financial crisis lead to a sudden loss of liquidity.
• Before the crisis
– Financial institutions relied on short-term borrowing to hold long-term financial
instruments.
• They believed funding liquidity would remain readily available.
– They also believed markets would also be liquid.
• They would always be able to sell the securities and loans they held.
• In 2007, doubt lead to a double “liquidity shock” increasing cash holdings.
– This reduced loan supplied intensifying the decreasing liquidity.
• One lesson: Liquidity is a highly valuable resource that can disappear when most needed.
The Future of Money
• The future of the three functions of money:
– Means of payment: disappearing due to ease of electronic transactions.
– Unit of account: likely to remain.
• Will always be needed to quote values and prices because it is efficient.
• But, will we move to one global unit of account?
– Store of value: disappearing due to liquidity of many financial instruments.
• In Africa, one of the common types of “mobile money” is in the form of pre-paid minutes.
– They can be swapped for cash or spent in shops
• Unlike true mobile money, airtime minutes do not depend on government stability or inflation.
• It can be sent immediately and anonymously.
• In areas where US currency is scarce, retailers who give change in minutes are more
competitive.
• The use of airtime has increased as it has grown easier to send minutes abroad.
• The value of international airtime transfers has increased to $700 million in 2012; up from $250 million in 2011.
• Some authorities are concerned at airtime’s use of money as network operators “issuing their own currency”.
• Others worry this is an easy way for criminal or extremist groups to move money secretly.
• It is likely some regulations will show up soon.
Lessons from the Article
• Almost anything can be used as currency, but they must have a reasonable store of value
• People also prefer payment mechanisms that are efficient, anonymous, and allow for large or small transfers.
Measuring Money
• Changes in the quantity of money are related to
– Interest Rates
– Economic Growth – Inflation
Measuring Money
• Inflation:
– The process of prices rising.
• Inflation rate:
– The measurement of the process.
• With inflation, you need more money to buy the same basket of goods.
• The primary cause of inflation is too much money.
Measuring Money
• The value of the means of payment depends on how much of it is circulating.
– We therefore must be able to measure how much is circulating.
• Defining money means defining liquidity (see figure 2.2).
Figure 2.2 - The Liquidity
Spectrum
Measuring Money
Different definitions of money are based upon degree of liquidity.
Drawing the line in different places has led to several measure of money called the money aggregates: M1 and M2.
M1: Narrowest definition.
Only the most liquid assets.
M2: Broader definition.
Includes assets not used as means of payment.
Table 2.1: The Monetary
Aggregates
Measuring Money
• What do the money aggregates mean?
– As of winter 2010, nominal US gross domestic product (GDP) was $14,500 billion.
– Using the data in Table 2.1 above:
• GDP is nearly nine times as large as M1.
• GDP is about 70 percent larger than M2.
Measuring Money
• Which M do we use to understand inflation?
– Until the early 1980’s we used M1.
– But with changes in accounts, M2 became more useful.
– M2 represents nearly one-half of GDP, so M1 is no longer a useful measure of money.
– Figure 2.3 shows the M’s growth rates.
Figure 2.3: Growth Rates of the
Money Aggregates
Measuring Money
• How useful is M2 in tracking inflation?
– When the quantity of money grows quickly, it produces high inflation.
– Figure 2.4 shows the inflation rate versus M2 two years earlier for the US.
• Positive correlation up until 1980.
• From 1990-2000 - no correlation.
– Growth in M2 stopped being a useful tool for forecasting inflation.
Figure 2.4: Money Growth and
Inflation
Measuring Money
• Why does M2 no longer predict inflation?
– Maybe the relationship only applies at high levels of inflation.
– Maybe it only shows up over longer periods of time.
– Maybe we need a new measure of money.
• We do know that at low levels of money growth, inflation is likely to stay low.
• The CPI answers the question:
“How much more would it cost for people to purchase today the same basket of goods and services that they actually bought at some fixed time in the past?”
• Computing CPI Inflation
– Survey people to see what they bought.
– Figure out what it would cost to buy the same basket of goods & service today.
– Compute the percentage change in the cost of the basket of goods.
CPI Cost of Basket in Current Year
Cost of Basket in Base Year * 100
Table 2.2: Computing the Consumer Price Index
100 CPI *
CPI 2015 CPI
Rate Inflation
2014
2014 2015
• In 2013 the public held about $1.2 trillion in US currency.
– You can compare this to each person holding
$3,700.
• Three-fourths of this money was in $100 bills.
• Many of these bills are in other countries.
• People in other countries hold other currencies that are more stable than their own.
