Pre-standardisation of mobile payments: negotiations within consortia

Inter-industrial collaboration between financial services and mobile communications initiates a new payment solution, i.e., mobile payments. However, dissimilar industries become the hurdle to create common standards for the converging technology, although there are existing technologies available. Conflict of interests between different players from diverse industries emerge and, as a result, mobile payments has no common standards and not been launched as it may creates market uncertainty. Using the case studies of numerous developing mobile payments consortia, this paper discusses the actors' efforts to propose a common standard and the negotiating process within cross-industrial environment. The current state is considered as pre-standardisation stage because the main actors are firms who realise the needs of inter-industrial collaboration. Various consortia come up with different preferences, which affect the negotiation process as well. The negotiation process during pre-standardisation stage is characterised into three phases with different dynamics.