The role of banks in the mobile payment ecosystem

Abstract

Markets in developed countries have witnessed the launch of a number of mobile payment initiatives over the last years. Even though the emergence of mobile payments may still hold high promises, most of these initiatives have seen stagnation or failure. Traditionally, dominant firms from various industries had to negotiate the exchange of their complementary resources and capabilities in order to provide a mobile payment platform. Indeed, significant efforts have been made to design a satisfying business model to enhance this essential collaboration. However, the struggle for these inter-dependent firms to form coalitions just hindered the emergence of successful mobile payment platforms. As firms have difficulties to self-orchestrate their efforts to shape sustainable ecosystems, different industry architectures solving the inter-dependency issue remain to be investigated. In certain architectures, the importance of the banks' role has been questioned. This paper takes a resource-based view on banks to explore how resources/capabilities bestow upon banks a competitive advantage in the mobile payment ecosystem. The analysis leads to the identification of strategic assets, owing to which it can be argued that the banks still have an essential role to play in the industry architecture.

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