Mobile Payments: Merchants’ Perspectives

The U.S. payment market has attracted increasing attention from technology firms and their investors seeking to capitalize on mobile and cloud technologies and the growing trend in consumer adoption of smartphones. Although consumers in the United States largely have not adopted mobile payments, merchants believe these technologies will address some current barriers to the use of mobile payments. In fact, many merchants are actively developing and implementing mobile payment applications. Will these new technologies increase the overall value of mobile payments for end users, namely merchants and consumers, and motivate them to use mobile payments? End users’ preferences will influence the industry’s direction as industry participants consider making investments and policymakers consider payments policies. This article focuses on merchants’ mobile payments preferences because, unlike consumer payment preferences, there is little research on the merchant perspective. The article examines attributes of mobile payments that may be a benefit or a concern to U.S. brick-and-mortar merchants. The analysis is based on phone interviews with about 20 large and midsize merchants from various retail categories. The article finds some attributes have clear effects on merchants. An enhanced customer shopping experience will be a benefit for merchants, while, at least in the near term, fragmented