Abstract

Mobile payment has been predicted to become the “new normal” in the payments industry. However, such predictions have hardly been realized in the Euro area, since most payments at the point of sale (POS) are still conducted in cash. Mobile payment represents a specific case of multi-sided markets, where the functioning of the whole market relies on the interaction between several players – in this case at least two, i.e. merchants and consumers – on a common platform. As such, every innovation that is brought to this market has to be adopted by both sides in order to be widely diffused. For the successful dissemination of mobile payment, however, it is important that merchants are among the early adopters, as merchants are the ones who directly cover the costs of the system. Nevertheless, despite its importance, extant research on mobile payment has often neglected the role of merchants. Our research in progress is set to investigate the main features of competition that will eventually stimulate merchants’ adoption of mobile payment at the POS. Empirical evidence will be provided via a survey targeting merchants with at least one physical POS. The results are expected to contribute to the literature on mobile payment, as well as that on the diffusion of innovations and multi- sided markets.

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