Why Are M-Payment Platforms So Attractive? M-Payment as the Entry Level to the Digital Financial Era

Mobile technologies have opened opportunities for innovative financial tech- nology solutions for storing money and payment instruments (e.g., digital wallets) and performing transactions (e.g., Apple Pay). Mobile Payments (M- Payments) allow making payments in a simple, fast, and low-cost way to pur- chase goods and services using smartphones or wearable devices. The advantages are based on the speed with which identities can be verified and transactions completed, not just on the prospect of being linked everywhere. M-Payments provide additional benefits to market players on both the demand and supply sides. On the demand side, the M-Payments system combines old and new tech- nology to “connect” clients to the financial system, even those who were previ- ously unable to do so (Korovkin et al., 2015). Furthermore, it influences client behaviour and increases their belief in machine-based transactions, under- mining trust, one of the financial intermediation’s pillars (Dhar and Stein, 2017). On the supply side, M-Payments, in fuelling commercial transactions in the real sector, hasten processes and modify the operating domain of the financial system. Payments via mobile devices have also opened new business opportuni- ties for various players belonging to diverse sectors involved in the supply side, leading to less-defined borderlines between the financial and the real sectors. In this panorama, financial Payment Service Providers (PSPs) and those others outside the financial sector (i.e., Telco, GAFA) further foster collaborative or competitive relationships, breaking down traditional business models (BMs), creating unique, previously non-existent ones. Platform-based BMs (Evans et al., 2006), which have been successful in other industries, might provide value to the financial industry by facilitating direct connections between more diverse users and offering a new means of expanding a company that benefits all parties involved. This work focuses on how M-Payments have made the financial system more permeable to new players, highlighting the financial system changes brought on by mobile devices and applications. This indicates that services previously supplied by banks may be fragmented into a variety of commercial activities that FinTech organizations can perform more simply and disseminate through a mobile-based platform. As clients acquire confidence in technology, it may be used to create more convenient, low-cost digital apps. Furthermore, in this situation, M-Payments Apps may play a role as catalysts and distributors of information that may be utilized to provide additional financial goods and services.