Economides examines the competitive implications of payment system networks from the perspective of his research on other industries characterized as networks, such as the telephone industry. He suggests a solution to the natural monopoly issue that is being implemented in other network industries: connectivity. To illustrate, long-distance companies are authorized to route their customers’ calls over lines owned by other telephone companies, including their competitors. The equivalent arrangement in the operation of ATM and point-of-sale (POS) systems would be a network with no ATM or POS terminals in a given market area offering its payment services through the terminals of the existing regional monopoly network. This would be a new approach to dealing with the natural monopoly issue in the operation of payment systems.

Commentary on "Antitrust and Payment Technologies" by Dennis W. Carlton and Alan S. Frankel.