Category Archives: Research

Network topology of CHAPS Sterling

By Kimmo Soramäki | Published: November 21, 2008
A paper by Christopher Becher, Stephen Millard and me looking at the topology of payment flows among UK banks was published as a Bank of England Working Paper (No. 355). In the paper we look at the structure of payment flows under normal circumstances and see how a real operational disruption of a major bank [...]
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Competition in two-sided markets

By Kimmo Soramäki | Published: October 11, 2008
Work by Wilko Bolt and me was recently published in the Nederlandsche Bank Working paper series. In the paper we look at pricing strategies of competing platforms operating in two-sided markets. Many markets are two-sided, i.e. serving two different types of customers: buyers and sellers (auctions, online trading platforms), card holders and merchants (credit [...]
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Bank of Finland Simulation Seminar

By Kimmo Soramäki | Published: August 28, 2008
As for the past five late August weeks, the Bank of Finland organised its annual Payment and Settlement Simulation Seminar. The BoF-PSS2 simulator which I helped to create is now in use in 72 sites across the world, mainly at central banks, clearing houses and universities. The seminar program consisted of a wide array of [...]
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An agent-based model of payment systems

By Kimmo Soramäki | Published: August 28, 2008
First results of my research with the Bank of England on developing agent based models of payment systems was recently published in the Bank of England’s working paper series. The paper entitled “Agent based model of payment systems” studies the equilibrium level of liquidity posted by banks in a payment system where the behavior of the banks [...]
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Global Trends in Large-Value Payments

By Kimmo Soramäki | Published: June 23, 2008
A paper by me, Christine Preisig and Morten Bech examining trends and developments in the world’s large-value payment systems was published recently in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Economic Policy Review. See the press release for details. The article was also featured on Finextra.com
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The interdependencies of payment and settlement systems

By Kimmo Soramäki | Published: June 13, 2008
The Bank for International Settlements has published on 4th of June a report with the above name (pdf). The emergence of global financial institutions and national systems that are linked to each other e.g. to synchronise the two legs of foreign exchange transactions have created an environment where a disturbance in one system has the [...]
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Payments and monetary and financial stability

By Kimmo Soramäki | Published: April 29, 2008
The proceedings from the Joint European Central Bank – Bank of England conference on “Payments and monetary and financial stability” were recently published. The publication provides an excellent overview of the key infrastructural issues in the fields of payments and banking and the current policy questions. Two branches of ongoing projects where I participate were [...]
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Complex systems: Ecology for bankers

By Kimmo Soramäki | Published: March 14, 2008
Our research on banking networks (“The Topology of Interbank Payment Flows” in Physica A, Vol. 379, pp 317-333, 2007) was recently featured in the Nature magazine (No. 451, 21 February 2008). The article “Complex systems: Ecology for bankers” discusses the commonalities in analysing financial networks and ecosystems – especially as regards their vulnerabilities. The picture [...]
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