Costs in the Payment System

Abstract

This article presents the estimated costs in 2007 of the use and production of the most common Norwegian payment services: payment cards, giros and cash. The social cost of using and producing payment services was NOK 11 billion. This is equivalent to 0.49 per cent of GDP, which is low in comparison with other countries. The social cost per payment is lower with the use of payment cards than with the use of cash. To our knowledge, the Norwegian Cost Study 2007 is more comprehensive than any other cost survey on payments conducted so far.