Card payment systems are sometimes accused of taking from the poor and giving to the rich. The argument is as follows: High card fees are leading to higher retail prices for both, card users and cash users. However, high-income card holders are receiving rewards when purchasing by card. The result may be a net transfer of, mostly low-income, cash users to, mostly high-income, card users. In this article, models with product differentiation are used to show that rich card-holders may actually be paying for their card rewards themselves. In this case, there is no perverse distribution effect.
