Mobile contactless payments adoption challenge in the complex network actor ecosystem

Mobile contactless payments (MCP) technology brings an important dual use dilemma where consumer adoption can be halted if consumer is not fully persuaded that the security risk behind the technology use is very low. Currently, although many projects on the implementation of MCP solutions have commenced, MCP is still not picking up. Why? To fill this research gap and better understand how security is affecting MCP implementation, we employ triangulation approach to understand if security is the main obstacle to further adoption and extension of MCP solution. The results reveal that consumer security is the crucial factor in a successful MCP implementation. Our result offers important and new insights for practitioners as it provides a security dimension to consider in the entire contactless payment ecosystem

Investigating failure to implement contactless payments: a case of Near Field Communication payment systems in South Africa

Near Field Communication (NFC) contactless payment systems are being touted as the future for retail payments and public transport fare-collection systems. Studies have shown that such initiatives require many organisations from different industries to work together for the goal to be realised. The effort and collaboration required to achieve this goal cannot be underestimated. The aim of this research is to explore the failure of NFC contactless payment system implementations. The Actor Network Theory (ANT) has been shown as appropriate for investigating IT implementation failures, and so serves as a study lens for this investigation. A case study research strategy was used in the research to gain an understanding of the as-lived experiences of the actors involved in an NFC payment system implementation. The data was collected using different methods such as interviews and review of project documents. Thematic analysis techniques were used to trace and unpack the interactions occurring around implementation of these NFC payment systems and the challenges encountered. The key factors identified as leading to the NFC payment system implementation failure are external dependencies, lack of required financial investments, interoperability issues due to new and legacy systems, and lack of clear governance structures and bodies. The results of the study suggest that, when there is external dependence, but the tasks, resources required, actors' capabilities, workloads and the duration for completing these tasks are not known, then there will be frequent conflicts, leading to NFC payment system implementation failure. Regulatory bodies and clear leadership structures in collaborative NFC payment system implementation were found to be crucial. The results of the study also propose that when new and legacy systems from multiple actors are to be integrated to develop an NFC payment platform, there is likely going to be system interoperability issues due to the numerous vendors involved, which lead to failure. In addition, unwillingness to commit to the required capital investments by stakeholders was identified as leading to the failure of the NFC payment system implementation. A prescriptive framework is developed based on these lessons that could aid in ensuring better outcomes in future NFC payment systems implementations

Mobile payment as a multi-sided platform : Success factors and IT governance practices

The aim of this research was to discover factors that lead to mobile payment platform’s success in the Finnish market. Mobile payment research has been ongoing for the past 20 years but no solution has made a clear breakthrough. Research has focused on technological factors, factors concerning consumers and adoption of mobile payment solutions and the majority has been exploratory, early research. Because of the rise of mobile technology and popularity of mobile content, flexible use of mobile phones and growing amount of non-cash transactions is a turning point now possible for mobile payment solutions. Along the success factors this research aimed to consider governance practices and to examine the perceived roles of the ecosystem participants. This is a qualitative study based on a case, MobilePay, a mobile payment platform provided by Danske Bank. Eleven semi-structured interviews (conducted in January 2017) with mobile payment ecosystem participants, industry experts, served as the research data, along with literature and publicly available information. The importance of nine success factors (choice of technology, choice of features, size of the ecosystem and openness, security, service pricing, reliable platform provider, guidance, training and support, successful implementation of service changes and sales and marketing of the platform) was evaluated. Because IT governance has been considered successful in the field of IT, two structures, three processes and three relational mechanisms were chosen to be evaluated to see their suitability in a mobile payment ecosystem. To create a better picture of the ecosystem, the perceived roles and responsibilities of the ecosystem participants were examined. All nine success factors were considered greatly significant for the success of a mobile payment platform. The successful implementation of service changes, the choice of technology and marketing of the platform were seen as the most important factors. User support was perceived the least important. Four success factors, user experience, ease of implementation, ability to use in all channels and loose competition and authoritative control, were added by the interviewees. Both cooperation between the ecosystem participants and clearly defined roles and responsibilities were perceived as critical for success. Solutions should also be based on existing standards. Identified contact persons in the participants’ organizations and a defined development plan were considered well-suitable for governing the mobile payment ecosystem

Trends in mobile payments research: A literature review

Mobile payments (m-payments) are increasingly being adopted by organisations as a new way of doing business in the 21st century. During the last few years, the use of m-payments as a new payment channel has resulted in an increase in the volume of literature dedicated to the topic. For this reason, this paper presents the findings of a review of literature aimed at identifying the key research themes and methodologies researched. In order to uncover these trends the authors reviewed the top twenty cited papers since 1999 and the twenty most recently published papers on m-payments since August 2014

Investigation of the NFC technology for mobile payments and the development of a prototype payment application in the context of marginalized rural areas

Both communication, and the methods and tools of commerce have evolved over time through the invention of new technologies. The latest of these technologies are mobile devices and electronic commerce respectively. The combination of these two technologies has resulted in the creation of electronic commerce which also enables mobile payments. Mobile payments (mpayments) are enabled by many technologies with Near Field Communication (NFC) being the most recent one. NFC is a wireless technology that enables mobile devices in close proximity to exchange data. The mobile device has already been enthusiastically accepted by the customers and they carry it with them wherever they go and this makes it a good device for providing a payment method alternative. This research looks at contactless mobile payment as a payment method. Customers in marginalized rural areas lack a payment alternative to cash hence in this research we are investigating and proposing the use of a NFC enabled mobile payment application for Marginalized Rural Areas. This research extensively evaluates and assesses the potential of using NFC enabled m-payments in Marginalized Rural Areas in South Africa by carrying out an investigation of the technology and its acceptance by customers. The investigation of the technology included implementation of a prototype application which was used to introduce the technology to the consumers. The customer acceptance of the NFC enabled mobile payments was evaluated using the Technology Acceptance model (TAM). The model was modified to suit the context of this study by adding more constructs. This research concluded that Near Field Communication enabled m-payments have great potential to be used and accepted by people in the marginalized rural areas

Towards a Market Entry Framework for Digital Payment Platforms

This study presents a framework to understand and explain the design and configuration of digital payment platforms and how these platforms create conditions for market entries. By embracing the theoretical lens of platform envelopment, we employed a multiple and comparative-case study in a European setting by using our framework as an analytical lens to assess market-entry conditions. We found that digital payment platforms have acquired market entry capabilities, which is achieved through strategic platform design (i.e., platform development and service distribution) and technology design (i.e., issuing evolutionary and revolutionary payment instruments). The studied cases reveal that digital platforms leverage payment services as a mean to bridge and converge core and adjacent platform markets. In so doing, platform envelopment strengthens firms’ market position in their respective core markets. This study contributes to the extant literature on digital platforms, market entries, and payment