A prerequisite to carry out transactions using a mobile phone is an effective mobile
payment system. However, no standardised, widely adopted mobile payment system
has yet emerged, and this is believed to be one of the factors that inhibits
widespread use of mobile commerce. This paper reports on a research project in
which the factors are examined that affect the introduction success of mobile
payment systems.
We start from the venture point that a lot can be learned from research on internet
paying systems, payment systems that have been introduced to facilitate payments
made over the internet. First we transferred factors affecting the introduction of
internet payment systems to a mobile setting. We then contrasted this list with the
views of 13 executives we interviewed in Sweden and the Netherlands.
We found that while many factors are at play at the same time, a subset of these
stood out at the early stages of the lifecycle of mobile payment systems. In the area
of consumer acceptance, these are their cost and their ease of use relative to other
payment methods, and the perceived risk. In the area of merchant acceptance,
transaction fees compared to debit and credit card systems are important, as is, to a
significant extent, the ease of use for the merchant. Finally, both customer and
merchant acceptance are highly interdependent as each influences the other,
especially during the early stages.