Provider Reactions and Cooperation Models in the Swedish Mobile Payment Space

Abstract: The convergence of mobile and social media, enabled by the ever-changing landscape of information and communication technologies and wireless technologies, has over the last decade, transformed our world into a Socio-Mobile Economy. Looking at the disruptive impact of this convergence on the global payment market, this study investigates the incentives behind different reactions and cooperation models that have been adopted by providers in the Swedish mobile payment market. The methodology of the study has been built on a combination of both theoretical and empirical bases. The theoretical base constitutes a literature review along the line of concepts such as innovation management, disruptive innovation, business model innovation, resource-based theory of the firm and the transaction cost theories, to identify existing gaps within the literature. The empirical base constitutes of qualitative in-depth interviews with three providers in the Swedish mobile payment market. The study shows three main reactions from the Swedish mobile payment providers. These providers have reacted to disrupt the disruption, attract a critical mass of customers, and to wrap their solutions with the right context. Currently, there is no cooperation between all three key input providers of a mobile payment solution, the banks, the MNOs and the card payment systems thus there are no full-integration or partial-integration models in the Swedish mobile payment market. Three cooperation models, the all-bank-centric, the MNO-centric and the light models were also identified in this market.