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Working Papers on Information Systems
ISSN 1535-6078
Mobile Payment Market and Research - Past, Present and
Future
Tomi Dahlberg
Helsinki School of Economics, Finland
Niina Mallat
Helsinki School of Economics, Finland
Jan Ondrus
ESSEC, France
Agnieszka Zmijewska
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Abstract
The mobile payment market is currently under transition with a history of numerous tried and
failed solutions and a future of promising but yet uncertain possibilities with contactless
RFID and other new potential technologies. At this point of the development we take a look
at the current state of the mobile payment market, review prior literature on mobile payment
services, analyze the different factors that impact the market, and give directions for future
research on this still emerging field. To facilitate the analysis, we propose a framework of
four contingency and five competitive factors, and organize the contemporary mobile
payment research under the proposed framework.
Keywords: Mobile payment systems, Mobile payment research, Literature review
Permanent URL: http://sprouts.aisnet.org/6-48
Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works License
Reference: Dahlberg, T., Mallat, N., Ondrus, J., Zmijewska, A. (2006). "Mobile Payment
Market and Research - Past, Present and Future," Proceedings > Proceedings of Helsinki
Mobility Roundtable . Sprouts: Working Papers on Information Systems, 6(48).
http://sprouts.aisnet.org/6-48
Sprouts - http://sprouts.aisnet.org/6-48
Mobile Payment Market and Research – Past, Present and Future
Tomi Dahlberg, Niina Mallat
Helsinki School of Economics
Jan Ondrus
Ecole des HEC, University of Lausanne
Agnieszka Zmijewska
University of Technology, Sydney
Abstract
The mobile payment market is currently under transition with a history of numerous tried
and failed solutions and a future of promising but yet uncertain possibilities with contactless
RFID and other new potential technologies. At this point of the development we take a look
at the current state of the mobile payment market, review prior literature on mobile payment
services, analyze the different factors that impact the market, and give directions for future
research on this still emerging field. To facilitate the analysis, we propose a framework of
four contingency and five competitive factors, and organize the contemporary mobile
payment research under the proposed framework.
Keywords: Mobile payment systems, mobile payment research, literature review
1. Introduction
Mobile phones have transformed telephony during the past 15 years. As devices, mobile
phones have for a long time been equipped with functionalities which far exceed the needs of
telephony, and have inspired the development of value added mobile services, the use of
mobile phones as access devices, and mobile commerce in general. These developments open
very lucrative opportunities to merchants and service providers. There are more mobile
phones than any other device that can be used to market, sell, produce or provide products
and services.
Purchased products and services have to be paid for. Initially, fixed line telephony billing
systems were modified to charge mobile telephony and other mobile services as such services
emerged. The deployment of (mobile) telecom billing systems is still the most typical way to
charge for mobile commerce transactions. However, payment services based on billing
systems have several limitations. These include high payment transaction fees, merchant and
service provider complaints about unfair revenue sharing, and necessity to provision services
to billing systems with limited roaming of mobile commerce transactions between mobile
networks. In some areas, such as European Union, payment services to third parties require a
(limited) credit institution license. Lack of suitable payment instruments has for a long time
been regarded as a factor that hampers seriously the development of mobile commerce.
In late 1990s and early 2000s mobile payment services became a hot topic and remained
so even after the burst of the Internet hype. Mobile payments attracted also researchers, e.g.,
Dahlberg et al. (2003a; 2003b), Ondrus and Pigneur (2004), Pousttchi (2003), and Zmijewska
et al. (2004b). Hundreds of mobile payment services as well as access to electronic payment
and Internet banking were introduced all over the world. Strikingly many of these efforts
failed. For example, most if not all of the dozens of mobile payment services available in EU
countries and listed in the ePSO database in 2002 (Carat, 2002) have been discontinued. The
difference to the rapid diffusion of the Visa Electron smart card or eBay/PayPal is striking.
Why have Visa Electron and PayPal succeeded in where mobile payment services failed?
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One answer could be that mobile technologies were not sufficiently mature and easy to
use and therefore failed to attract consumers, merchants and banks. Now there seems to be a
new wave of interest towards mobile payment services inspired by the above described needs
and new technology based innovations, especially contactless vending and ticketing, and
RFID (radio frequency identification).
Before new mobile payment services are launched, it is important to understand what
previous studies have discovered about the acceptance of mobile payment services and about
mobile services markets, and also what issues have remained unanswered. In line with
Zmijewska and Lawrence (2005) we propose that multi faceted answers are required to
answer questions such as why mobile payment services have not diffused, or what the
impacts of various mobile payment services market factors on the development of these
services are.
The aim of this paper is to summarize findings from past mobile payment services market
research, and to suggest venues for future research. This is done with the help of a proposed
framework. The main contributions of our paper are the framework itself, and the ability of
the framework to compress findings of mobile services adoption, strategy and business
models, security and trust, and other studies, as well as its ability to propose meaningful
venues for future research. By using the framework, existing findings can be better
understood and applied, both by industry when implementing their practical solutions, and by
researchers studying mobile payments. The framework not only helps to explain the existing
body of knowledge in each framework category, but it also provides a "big picture", or an
overview, illustrating how the various perspectives fit together. It also reveals the gaps in
literature, and therefore indicates what future research needs to focus on.
2. Context of the study - mobile payment services market
Mobile payments are payments for goods, services, and bills/invoices with a mobile
device (such as a mobile phone, smart-phone, or Personal Digital Assistant) by taking
advantage of wireless and other communication technologies (such as mobile
telecommunications networks, or proximity technologies). Mobile devices can be used in a
variety of payment scenarios such as payment for digital content (e.g. ring tones, logos, news,
music, or games), concert or flight tickets, parking fees, and bus, tram, train and taxi fares, or
to access and use electronic payment services to pay bills and invoices. Payments for physical
goods are also possible, both at vending and ticketing machines, and at manned Point-of-Sale
terminals. Typical usage entails the user electing to make a mobile payment, being connected
to a server via the mobile device to perform authentication and authorization, and
subsequently being presented with confirmation of the completed transaction (Antovski &
Gusev, 2003; Ding & Hampe, 2003b).
A mobile payment service comprises of all technologies that are offered to the user as
well as all tasks that the payment service provider(s) perform to commit payment
transactions. As Figure 1 shows a mobile payment service may include several parties. Many
issues such as the power and the interests of the parties, legal and regulatory environment,
and payment culture impact the orchestration of technologies and tasks into a mobile
payment service.
A mobile payment as any other payment is carried out by using a specific payment
instrument such as cash, credit card, or mobile phone wallet. In addition to pure mobile
payment instruments, most electronic and many physical payment instruments have been
“mobilized”. Payments fall broadly into two categories; payments for purchases and
payments of bills/invoices. In payments for purchases mobile payments compete with or
complement cash, checks, credit cards, and debit cards. In payments of bills/invoices mobile
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payments typically provide access to account based payments such as money transfers,
Internet banking payments, or direct debit assignments.
Bank or
credit card
company
Bank or
credit card
company
Payment
service
provider
Payment
service
provider
Mobile
network
operator
Mobile
network
operator
Handset
manufacturer
Handset
manufacturer
Merchant or
service
provider
Merchant or
service
provider
End user
End user
Security &
Authentication
provider
Security &
Authentication
provider
Bank or
credit card
company
Bank or
credit card
company
Payment
service
provider
Payment
service
provider
Mobile
network
operator
Mobile
network
operator
Handset
manufacturer
Handset
manufacturer
Merchant or
service
provider
Merchant or
service
provider
End user
End user
Security &
Authentication
provider
Security &
Authentication
provider
Figure 1. Potential parties in the mobile payment service value chain
To conclude; when the mobile payment services market is investigated it is important to
keep in mind that many contingency and competitive factors impact this market, and that
mobile payment services compete with advanced physical and electronic payment services.
To succeed, mobile payment services have to be competitive with other payment services in
all payment situations, with the exception of genuine mobile services, where mobile payment
services are a natural choice. For these reasons a multi faceted framework is needed to
describe both the mobile payment services market and research regarding this market.
3. Research framework
As section 2 indicates, there are a number of factors which impact the success of a new
payment service. To describe the relations between these factors, we deemed it necessary to
create the framework shown in Figure 2. The framework is modified from (Dahlberg &
Mallat, 2002; Javalgi & Ramsey, 2001; Jayawardhena & Foley, 2000).
Jayawardhena and Foley (2000) proposed that changes in technological, cultural,
commercial and legal factors together with the competitive forces of financial services
market drive financial services development. Javalgi and Ramsey (2001) postulated that
information technology and telecommunication, social/cultural, commercial, and
government/legal factors impact the diffusion of global eCommerce. Dahlberg and Mallat
(2002) applied these two generic models to describe factors that impact mobile payment
services diffusion. We made slight modifications to their model, so that the resulting
framework better describes the mobile payment services market. The word legal is replaced
with legal, regulatory, and standardization which better describes the sources of norm
changes that impact the mobile payment services market. Other similar wording
modifications are the replacement of retailer power with merchant power (supplier power),
customer power with consumer power (buyer power), and the division of alternative payment
services into traditional payment services (barriers to entry) and into new e-payment services
(substitutes). The resulting framework thus incorporates contingency factors with the five
force model of Porter (1998).
Four of the framework factors, that is, technological, social/cultural, commercial, and
legal/regulatory/standardization are beyond the control of individual market participants.
These factors are contingency factors. Other five factors are competitive factors describing
the main competitive forces of the mobile payment market. More detailed explanation of
each contingency and competitive factor is provided at the beginning of sections 5-6, which
summarize research in each specific category.
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Changes in
Technological
Environment
Changes in
Social/Cultural
Environment
Changes in
Commerce
Environment
Changes in Legal,
Regulatory, and
Standardization
Environment
MOBILE
PAYMENT
SERVICES
Competition
between M-
Payment Service
Providers
Consumer
Power
Merchant
Power
New
E-payment
Services
Traditional
Payment
Services
Figure 2. Framework of factors impacting the mobile payment market
We use the framework as a meta-model, which provides an overall view to the literature
and to the diverse viewpoints that can be taken when studying the mobile payment market.
We postulate that the framework is useful in describing the mobile payment services market
because: (1) It is conceptually sound and drawn from previous research. (2) It brings clarity
to the multiple topics and to the vague, conflicting terminology present in professional and
academic mobile payment literature. (3) It shows clearly what factors impact the mobile
payment services market and services development, another issue in need of clarity.
4. Methodology
To determine the current state and future directions of mobile payment research, we
conducted an extensive literature search on published papers on the topic. As mobile
payments are still a new and emerging research area, most of the contemporary research is
published in conference proceedings. Therefore, to compile a comprehensive bibliography on
mobile payment research, we included in our search academic journal papers as well as
conference proceedings and book chapters. The following online academic databases were
searched:
ProQuest Direct
EBSCO Business Source Premier
ScienceDirect
IEEE Xplore
ACM Digital Library
Google Scholar
M-lit online bibliographical database dedicated to mobile business literature
The literature search was based on the descriptors “mobile payments”, “m-payments”,
and “wireless payments” that were to be found on the title or abstract of the paper. We
excluded papers where mobile payments were not the main topic of the paper but a minor
section of an overall research on mobile commerce or e-payment systems.
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All the authors of this paper have been actively researching various mobile payment
issues for the past several years and one of authors worked a number of years as an executive
vice president for banking and telecommunications industry. Our experience on research and
practice of mobile payments field ensured our familiarity with both existing work and the
sources that needed to be taken into consideration.
The search resulted in 97 papers, which were published between 1999 and 2006. Of the
papers, 72 were published in conference proceedings, 19 in journals and 6 in textbooks.
Figure 1 below shows the amount of papers published each year excluding 2006, which is
still ongoing. The number of m-payment publications has increased steadily until peak year
of 2004 after which there was a slight decrease in 2005.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Figure 1. Mobile payment papers published in 1999-2005
The most researched categories in our framework are technological environment,
consumers, and the central dimension that includes research on m-payment market in general,
m-payment services and providers, and market rivalry. Some papers examined issues in more
than one dimension. The least studied dimensions were social/cultural environment and
competition between m-payments and new e-payment services. We found no papers that
would have specifically addressed these issues. Table 1 shows the number of papers that
discuss topics within each of the framework’s categories.
Table 1. Number of papers by research framework categories
Categories in the research framework No. of papers
Outer Dimensions
Social/Cultural 0
Commercial 6
Technological 48
Legal/Regulatory/Standardization 6
Inner Dimensions
Consumers 22
Merchants 6
Traditional payment services 5
New e-payment services 0
M-payment service market and providers 21
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In the following sections we discuss relevant review findings within each of the different
dimensions of our research framework, identify areas which have not yet been addressed, and
give directions for future work.
5. Mobile payment environment analysis – contingency factors
The four outer dimensions of our research framework describe factors that are external to
the mobile payment business environment, and thus outside management control. They
include changing social/cultural, commercial, technical, and legal/regulatory environment.
The four factors are likely to have a significant impact on the business, and therefore the
ability to understand, explain, and predict these factors is important for both researchers and
managers (Jayawardhena & Foley, 2000).
5.1 Changing social and cultural environment
Changes in people’s social and cultural environment easily affect their consumption
habits, buying behavior, and thus their need for new payment systems. Examples of these
changes include changing payment cultures and lifestyles, greater mobility of people, and
increased appreciation for leisure time. Our literature review did not reveal any academic
papers that would have investigated the effects of social and cultural changes on mobile
payment demand and development. Relevant research reports and studies on related fields are
discussed below to provide suggestions for future mobile payment research on this
dimension.
One study that analyses the influence of culture on development of payment systems was
performed by Bohle and Krueger (2001). The authors pointed out that mobile phones are
used to a much smaller extent in the US than in Europe. They also identified clearly
distinguishable payment cultures within Europe, for example the debit orientation in
Germany, or the determining smart card tradition of French banks. Other cultural factors that
can influence what payment services are offered and how they are adopted include industry
strengths, home-banking affinity of consumers, or strong mobile phone inclination. Common
trends can be also based on neighborhood and shared cultural patterns among countries. The
preference of payment instruments chosen at the real Point-of-Sale (POS) clearly influences
the preferred payment method at the virtual POS.
Another comparison between mobile payment in Europe and the U.S. was performed by
(Huber, 2004). His qualitative study indicates that differences are well grounded by the
adoption of mobile technologies, the different payment habits of customers, and the stronger
involvement of the banking industry in Europe.
Many other cultural factors could be studied in relation to mobile payments as well. For
example, Sundqvist et al. (2002) explored the effects of country characteristics, cultural
similarity and adoption timing on the diffusion of wireless communications. Another study
(Mahmood et al., 2004) examined the influence of culture on online shopping behavior.
Factors that were discussed included demographics and lifestyle characteristics, or cultural
variables in developed and developing countries.
5.2 Changing commercial environment
Changes in the commercial environment include the development of Internet and mobile
networks into commercial channels, and the increasing automation and self-service
orientation of payment services. Such changes in commercial transactions create needs for
new or enhanced payment services and drive their development. Mobile payment research in
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this dimension looks at how business practices have changed, and how these changes
facilitate/necessitate the introduction of mobile payments
Ondrus & Pigneur (2005) used several qualitative interviews with key Swiss experts in
the field to analyze two possible disruptions of the mobile payment market - a possible
sliding from the current e/m-payment cards initially introduced by financial institutions to the
newly designed mobile phone schemes involving mobile operators; and a possible switch
from an integrated market driven by dominant actors to a self-organized market where mobile
payment solutions are offered by intermediaries and newcomers.
Another study (A. Zmijewska & Lawrence, 2006), based on the results of a web-based
qualitative survey, revealed how each of the key stakeholders (operators, banks, and third-
parties) could affect the development of mobile payments. Currently, the lack of agreement
and cooperation between the players seems to hinder the development of m-payments. The
conclusions suggest that successful mobile payments solutions will be based on strong
partnerships between the main stakeholders.
Similar findings were confirmed by Lawrence et al. (2005) in their case study research of
three Australian companies. Their interviews revealed that the main reason for the collapse of
one of the studied m-payment service providers was the inability to successfully partner. The
other two case studies also demonstrated that partnering with banks and mobile operators is
vital for the success of these systems. Without such partners, mobile payment service
providers are more likely to perish. Dahlberg and Mallat (2002) came earlier to a similar
conclusion.
5.3 Changing technological environment
Development of wireless and other technologies facilitate the introduction of new or
enhanced payment services, and drive the development of mobile payments. Research on this
dimension analyses various technologies that can be used in new payment systems, and
issues and challenges that they bring about.
Chen and Adams (2004) examined several short-range wireless technologies in terms of
their use in mobile payments systems: Bluetooth, Infrared, RFID and Near Field
Communication (NFC). The changing technological environment that influences new mobile
payment offerings was also analyzed by Zmijewska (2005). This study explored the potential
suitability of various networking technologies for providing the required features in mobile
payments. The discussed technologies include 2nd and 3rd generation mobile networks,
NFC, Infrared and Bluetooth. Ding & Hampe (2003a) also analyzed latest enabling
technologies, comparing their technical features.
A new architecture for mobile payment system to improve business processes and
increase customer loyalty was proposed by Ondrus and Pigneur (2004). To have a better
understanding of the technologies in mobile payment, they proposed a three dimensional m-
payment framework. 'Network' gathers the technologies used in a wireless network
infrastructure, 'device' represents the user wireless infrastructure, while 'mobile application'
describes the technologies used mostly by mobile application developers, mobile application
service providers and content providers.
Some other studies have focused on one particular technology and its use in mobile
payments, for example on Bluetooth (Pradhan et al., 2005), J2ME (Antovski & Gusev, 2003),
or SET and KSL protocols (Kungpisdan et al., 2004b).
Mobile payments security has been the focus of discussions of network technologies by
Schwiderski and Knospe (2002), Me (2003), and Nambiar et al. (2004). Karnouskos et al.
(2004) described how security, trust and privacy are tackled in their proposed system,
SEMOPS.
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Some other studies that have focused on changing technological environment include
sound-based mobile payment system (O. Lee, 2004), modeling of policy-based mobile
payment (Kim, 2004), mobile-to-mobile payment system (Das et al., 2005), accountability
logic for mobile payment protocols (Kungpisdan et al., 2004a), as well as a general layered
framework and a new process for mobile payment (Zheng & Chen, 2003).
In addition to academic literature, there is a vast body of commercial and market research
literature on various aspects of mobile payment (enabling) technologies.
5.4 Changing legal, regulatory, and standardization environment
Changes in the legal, regulatory and standardization environment describe changes in
jurisdiction, regulations and in other norms with requirements to comply that create needs for
new or enhanced payment services and drive the development of mobile payments. This
category has not been researched extensively in the mobile payments field.
Rawson (2005) discussed the regulatory issues in mobile transactions between different
EU countries. His article concludes that mobile transactions between different countries are
increasingly complex due to a complicated web of law and regulation but may be clarified by
unifying regulation such as EU directives.
Using the case studies of numerous developing mobile payments consortia, Lim (2005)
discussed the process of standard setting for mobile payments, and the importance of
standards in the field.
Lawrence and Lawrence (2004) reviewed the impact of attacks on the wireless
communication systems in a legal and security context with a view to formulating technical
and legal policy suggestions. To assist in addressing these problems, the researchers
presented a modified Mobile Enterprise Security and Legal (MELS) Framework. A similar
study could reveal legal questions, as well as frameworks for dealing with them in the mobile
payments field.
6. Mobile payment market analysis – competitive factors
The five inner dimensions of our framework describe the main competitive factors in the
mobile payment market. The factors include consumer power, merchant power, traditional
payment services (barriers to entry), new e-payment services (substitutes), and mobile
payment service providers. These different players are in the center of mobile payment
market development and their behavior and relative powers determine how the market is
shaped.
6.1 The consumer power
Consumers create a specific demand for a mobile payments solution and drive its success
by adopting and using it. In other words, the success of a mobile payments solution depends
on the number of participants and the volume of transaction. The potential threat of customer
churn could enable some pressure on mobile payments service providers to design a solution
that fulfills consumers’ needs and satisfies them. However, consumers do not necessarily
have a direct influence on the providers at an early stage of development. This is evident
from previous payment instruments that were introduced to the market without an expressed
demand from the consumers. For instance, debit cards were brought to the market to limit the
number of customers going to bank tellers to withdraw cash. This was mainly done to
improve the business processes and reduce the costs of banks. With limited consumer
influence in the early development stages, the risks of solution’s failure increase.
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A certain amount of research has been done to study the adoption factors of consumers.
This research was mostly based on TAM (Davis, 1989) with additional constructs adapted to
study mobile payments such as security, cost, trust, mobility, expressiveness, convenience,
speed of transaction, facilitating condition, attractiveness of alternative, privacy, system
quality, and technology anxiety (J.J. Chen & Adams, 2005; Cheong et al., 2004; Dahlberg et
al., 2003a; Dahlberg et al., 2003b; Dewan & Chen, 2005; C.-P. Lee et al., 2004; Mallat, 2004;
Mallat & Dahlberg, 2005; Valcourt et al., 2005; A. Zmijewska et al., 2004b).
On their side, Dahlberg et al. (2002) also combined three different theories (i.e. Customer
perceived value (Grönroos, 1997), TAM (Davis, 1989), and network externalities theory
(Shapiro & Varian, 1999)) to study mobile payments adoption.
To propose a classification of mobile payments solutions, Zmijewska et al. (2004a)
introduced a user-centric model based on features that are apparent to consumers. The
purpose of the model was also to discover more about consumer’s acceptance motivations
and preferences.
Using the results of a survey done in Germany (Khodawandi et al., 2003), Pousttchi
(2003) presented some essential conditions for acceptance and usage of mobile payments (i.e.
security, costs, convenience, and functionality requirements). Based on the same idea,
Valcourt et al. (2005) conducted a survey on the interest of 130 youths in mobile payment for
a movie ticket purchase service. The main results were that 76% of the respondents would be
interested in buying movie tickets with a mobile phone, and 78% would use a service
whereby their buying transactions would be charged on their mobile carrier bill.
In order to launch an adapted and therefore successful mobile payment solution, it is
crucial to study and understand these adoption factors. This has been relatively well explored
by many researchers. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is still a lack of research
concerning the pressure the consumers can put on the mobile payment providers.
6.2 Merchant power
Merchants
1
have an important role in the development of payment services. They create
the market for financial institutions and other payment service providers. Some payment
solution failures were explained by the lack of merchant involvement in development and
deployment. Their active participation in promoting a payment solution is crucial to
consolidate a large number of points of acceptance. The merchant power should not be
underestimated as they could decide to altogether reject a payment scheme that would not
suit them (e.g. high commission fees). A consortium of merchants could have a significant
bargaining power against mobile payment service providers.
Another important aspect to take into account is that merchants could become mobile
payment service providers themselves. In fact, some merchants already operate their own
payment solutions in industries such as public transportation (e.g. Octopus in Hong Kong),
and retail (e.g. IKEA card), among others.
Some studies have analyzed the potential risk of merchants becoming mobile payment
service providers (Ondrus & Pigneur, 2005; Ondrus & Pigneur, 2006b). Other research has
been done to understand the adoption factors of merchants (Mallat & Dahlberg, 2005; Mallat
& Tuunainen, 2005; Teo et al., 2005). The power of the merchants could be further studied in
order to better understand their role in the mobile payment market.
1
We use “merchant” as a generic term to describe various kinds of merchants and service providers
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6.3 The traditional payment services
Traditionally speaking, the more popular modes of payments for purchases are cash,
checks, debit and credit cards. In Europe, there is still a strong preference of using cash over
cards with the exception of Scandinavian countries. Conversely, in North America, cards are
accepted for any type of purchase (i.e. micro and macro payments). The trend of payment
process digitalization started partly with the demand for a payment instrument to support
electronic commerce. A similar trend to more electronic payments modes is visible also in
payments for bills/invoices lead by Internet banking/payments, e-invoices, and e-direct
debit/credit assignments.
Today, with the development of mobile services and mobile commerce, there is a demand
for mobile payment services. A current issue that remains to be solved is how traditional
payment services could be adapted for this new demand. Some trends indicate that mobile
phones are just a new channel for current card- and account-based systems. However, there is
still a risk that the creation of a mobile payment market threatens the current payment
schemes as newcomers could enter this market (e.g. the mobile network operators).
Some research has been done to evaluate the disruptive potential of mobile phones
against cards (Ondrus & Pigneur, 2005; Ondrus & Pigneur, 2006a). Based on their findings,
Ondrus and Pigneur could confirm that cards were still preferred to phones for payments in
the Swiss market. On their side, Chou et al. (2004) evaluated various payment technology
alternatives using technological, economic, and social factors. The results showed that
payments charged to the telecom bill were the least preferred alternative. Other studies
indicate that mobile services and payments are used to complement, not replace, existing
ones (Mallat et al., 2006).
6.4 New electronic payment services
When electronic commerce created a demand for electronic payment services, financial
institutions brought to the market new services based on their existing card- and account-
based schemes. However, due to security and privacy issues, some intermediaries such as
PayPal, Peppercoin, Paystone and others seem to have succeeded in fulfilling the needs of the
online merchants and consumers, as the current credit cards schemes were not well adapted
for micropayments. Therefore, a new generation of payment providers emerged to
complement, rather than compete with, existing schemes.
No papers found in our review discussed the position of or competition between mobile
payments and new e-payments. Some research has been done to survey, describe and classify
alternative payment schemes (Carat, 2002; Weber, 1999; Yu et al., 2002). Plouffe et al.
(2001) conducted a comparative study of the consumer and merchant adoption towards
electronic payment schemes.
6.5 The rivalry in the mobile payment service market
At this time, there is still uncertainty as to whether or not the adoption and use of mobile
payments will prevail; these questions are primarily due to the lack of standards and
immaturity of the market. Financial institutions and mobile operators are trying to overcome
these issues by launching isolated initiatives to respond to current specific market needs. One
consequence of this is that collaboration between banks and mobile operators is limited, as
both want to control most of the value chain so as to increase their revenue. However, current
payment service providers will probably keep control of the payment process and mobile
network operators will create the new channel by providing their mobile network
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infrastructure. Some newcomers also propose mobile payment solutions where financial
institutions and mobile operators are used only as tools to enable the service. This could be a
threat for financial institutions if they do not monitor closely the development of such
solutions.
Some research has been done about the competition or collaboration in the mobile
payment market. However, the limitations of such research are important, as each national
market is different in terms of its actors. Based on a qualitative study, Zmijewska and
Lawrence (2006) reviewed strengths and weaknesses of potential mobile payment providers.
Moreover, they discussed the possible role of each actor in different collaboration models.
Ondrus and Pigneur (2005; 2006c) studied the possible threats caused by independents and
newcomers in the Swiss mobile payment industry. One major finding was that collaboration
between the stakeholders was preferred to competition. A survey and classification of mobile
payment solutions was proposed by Karnouskos (2004). Moreover, Karnouskos discussed the
different mobile payment models and their impact in terms of collaboration. A short
subsection also depicts the existing consortia that are working on mobile payments.
7. Conclusions and proposals for future research
The aim of our paper was to review prior research on mobile payment services to analyze
the different factors that impact this market, and to give directions for future research in the
emerging field. A framework with four contingency and five competitive factors was
proposed and used to categorize the literature review.
The contingency factors in our framework represent external factors that are largely
beyond the influence of the mobile payment market players. Based on the findings, we
propose the following four directions for research concentrating on each of the contingency
factors.
P1: Social and cultural factors are important determinants for the use of different payment
instruments, diffusion of wireless communication, and online shopping behavior (Bohle &
Krueger, 2001; Sundqvist et al., 2002; Mahmood et al., 2004). These factors include, but are
not limited to, economic conditions within the country, payment culture, and culture’s
disposition to trust. As social/cultural factors are scarcely studied in mobile payment context,
important directions for future studies include exploring how these factors influence the
development and adoption of mobile payments, and how they can be managed to facilitate m-
payments diffusion. Multi-cultural comparisons of payment cultures and preferences are also
needed.
P2: The commercial environment of mobile payment market has so far been unstructured
with lots of proprietary solutions competing with each other. Latest research suggests,
however, that more cooperation and stronger partnerships are needed to facilitate the market
development (Zmijewska & Lawrence, 2006; Lawrence et al., 2005). More research is
needed, however, to identify the specific needs that electronic and mobile environments have
for payment services and to examine cooperation strategies that enable sustainable service
development for these markets.
P3: Changes and innovations in the technological environment have driven the
development of mobile payments so far. This area is also extensively examined by academic
literature (Antovski & Gusev, 2003; Kungpisdan et al., 2004a; Me, 2003; Pradhan et al.,
2005). Yet many of the technological m-payment innovations have failed to attract customers
or support profitable business models. Future research on the area could take a more holistic
approach to technology development, and examine how and which technologies could better
enhance customer experience or facilitate cooperation and cost-effective business models in
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mobile payment market. A comprehensive view is needed as the marketing of payment
services may fail due to overly technical orientation.
P4: One of the least studied factors in mobile payment market is the legal, regulatory and
standardization environment, and its influence on mobile payment services development.
Lack of contemporary research is understandable, however, since the legislation, such as the
relationship between mobile payments and the e-money directive in EU, is only currently
being formulated. Important questions for future research include the role and extent of
regulation needed to provide a viable, fair and secure environment for different parties in the
m-payment market.
The competitive factors in our framework describe the different players and their
relative power in influencing the development of mobile payment market. Based on the
findings, we outline five broad propositions for research concentrating on the competitive
factors.
P5: The factors affecting consumer adoption of mobile payments have been addressed by
prior literature (Dahlberg et al., 2003a; Mallat & Dahlberg, 2005; Valcourt et al., 2005). Our
review suggests, however, that consumer influence on the development of new mobile
payment services contributes to their success and may currently be insufficient. Potential
direction to future research is therefore to examine how and to what extent consumers should
be included in mobile payments development.
P6: Merchants play a significant role in mobile payment market as both adopters and
promoters of the new system. While Merchants’ role and adoption determinants have been
examined by some of the previous studies (Mallat & Tuunainen, 2005), more research is
needed to examine the power and participation of merchants in the mobile payments market.
P7: One of the critical issues for mobile payments success is their position compared with
traditional, established payment solutions. At present, mobile payments are competitive for
purchases of mobile content and items like vending and ticketing, but the traditional payment
services still dominate the volume sales. Future research should study the development trends
of different payment services and identify opportunities for mobile payments. One interesting
question is whether the value of payment services would be increased by integrating the
current chip-based card systems into mobile devices. It is noteworthy that the technology
basis as well as the vendors of financial smart-cards (chip-based credit etc. cards) and chip-
based mobile telecom SIM cards are the same.
P8: The role and opportunities of mobile payments in contrast with other new e-payment
services are not extensively discussed in literature. This is surprising, considering the
important facilitating role that payment services have in electronic and mobile commerce.
More research is thus needed to determine what types of payment services are needed in the
future and how the traditional and new payment services should be integrated to form a
seamless overall financial infrastructure for customers.
P9: One factor contributing to the low success of mobile payments is the fragmental
market with several small and non-standard solutions. Mobile payment service providers are
still looking for their roles and most of them aim for a central position in the value chain. As
new payment technologies continue to combine features from both financial and telecom
industry, a central aim for future research is to identify the key competencies, natural roles,
business models, and strategies that different players could have in the m-payment value
chain.
8.
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Working Papers on Information Systems | ISSN 1535-6078
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