Mobile Payments Failures

Recently, Jan Ondrus (assistant professor at ESSEC Business School) conducted an interesting research on the reasons of failure for mobile payments in Switzerland. Interesting, because he categorizes his findings into the different phases of a mobile payment project. The full article is available here. He investigated several mobile payment projects and below a quick recap of the different failure reasons:

Phase 1 - Build an alliance between MNO and Financial institutions.
This seems reasonable, although it is easier said then done. How many MNO's are capable of doing this? We know Vodafone is already active in this market via MPesa, so thats one down. To me it seems absolutely crucial for banks to connect to an MNO as soon as possible.

Phase 2 - Involve the sellers and business intermediaries side (i.e., merchants) in the development and deployment of the service. Build a sufficient supply in two-sided markets.
Again quite obvious. No one will use mobile payments if they can't actually pay for stuff with the service.

Phase 3 - Provide an adequate value for the consumers to join the service. Generate incentives to create demand in two-sided markets.
If it's more expensive and more hassle, no consumer will make the switch from cash. Easier, faster, better security, more functionality and cheaper...

Phase 4 - Involve the manufacturers to scale the system and offer interoperability and ease of use. Build up interoperable standards for connectivity and transactions.
Interoperability is key, both for the consumer and the merchant. It will not catch on if you have to have accounts at several different mobile payment operators to be be able to split the restaurant bill.