Money & Payments: Evolution or Revolution?

On Friday, November 21 at 12 PM, Professor and Chair of Economics at Skidmore College Joerg Bibow will be presenting his recent Levy Working Paper, “Banking on Payments?”

Professor Joerg Bibow grew up in Hamburg, northern Germany, and has studied and worked in six countries, including South Africa, Italy, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Before and during his studies of economics at three different universities he gathered a number of years of work experience in the financial services industry (insurance, pension fund, and banking). He has also worked, as researcher and consultant, with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Geneva, Switzerland, is a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, and is a fellow at the Forum for Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM).

ABSTRACT
For the past hundred years or more, payments have been primarily associated with banking, and banking as we know it today—being the result of many centuries of evolution—features a bundling of (at least) three main lines of business: lending, deposit-taking, and payment services. In the past 15 years or so, banks have come under severe competition as providers of payment services. Will “banking on payments” become outmoded and payments untethered from banking, or will payments still have a place in the future of banking?