Mobile Payment: A Systematic Literature Review on Mobile Payment

This report presents a systematic literature review on mobile payment, exploring its evolution, functionality, and benefits. The research investigates mobile payment's core concepts, technological underpinnings, and advantages. It delves into the gaps within the technology and provides recommendations for future research and development. The study employs a comprehensive methodology, analyzing various databases and sources, including EBSCO and Scopus, to gather relevant articles and data. The analysis encompasses the definition of mobile payment, its operational mechanisms, and its impact across different sectors. The report also highlights the benefits of mobile payments, such as enhanced transaction security and convenience, while also identifying existing limitations and areas for improvement. The report also discusses the research questions and the methodology, including the databases searched and the keywords used. Furthermore, it summarizes the findings of the research, including the conceptualization of mobile payment, the payment methods, and the benefits and gaps identified. The conclusion and recommendations provide insights for enhancing the future of mobile payment.

Running Head: MOBILE PAYMENT 1
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A systematic literature review on Mobile Payment

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Abstract
This review paper aims at assessing on mobile payment research. It provides its
understanding, how it works, the possible gaps that are or have been there over years as well as
its benefits. A number of research sources have been analyzed to explore on this topic as with the
evolution there is an accumulation of new knowledge and ideas. A general review on the
frequently asked question concerning mobile payments is also analyzed. This review paper
majorly requires a research on mobile payment using the EBSCO database and the Scopus
database as they provide a number of library database services that are of high quality as well as
they are easy to navigate despite having a wide coverage. A conclusion as well as suggested
recommendations are also analyzed to provide a variety of ideas that can enhance the future of
mobile payment.
Keywords: Mobile payment, mobile money, digital mobility technologies, frameworks.
Paper type: a systematic Literature review research paper.
Introduction
A new system of payment has emerged due to the recent evolution of Technology in the
wireless and telecommunication sector. This system is believed to solve inefficiencies and the
shortcomings of the conventional payment systems as PayPal debit card, visa card and master
card making it easy to perform transactions at any given time from any place. This system is the
mobile payment or mobile money that makes it possible to transfer money, buy goods as well as
pay for services among other services. It involves use of wireless devices such as the personal
digital assistant (PDA), a mobile phone and several relevant digital devices. Majorly there is
initiation of transactions using the mobile device or the phone that are the online banking
website, sending of text messages, web browser and online payment website. A good number of
banks have adopted this new system into their apps of banking to allow their customers to send
money directly from their bank accounts. The mobile payments were first known in Asia and
Europe that later spread to several parts of the continent that advanced from sending a text
message to having the capabilities for banking apps (Bailey, Pentina, Mishra & Mimoun, 2017).
A number of authors have defined mobile payments to their understanding and focused on
technology and consumer adoption. According to Yan L. et al (2011), they state it to be a kind of
service that ensure users have the permit to use its mobile terminal which is the mobile phone to

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pay for goods and services required for their consumption. Back then, a small number of
customers managed to experience the mobile payments and quite a big number of the initiatives
regarding mobile payments were never a success way before reaching the intended end users.
The complexity of the phenomenon leads to an investigation of the adoption of consumers to
provide quite an understanding of mobile payments.
In this systematic review paper, it is shown that mobile payments were differentiated
from any kind of electronic or mobile money, use of mobile devices and electronic banking. A
framework consisting of mobile payment service that is based on the Porter’s Five-Forces model
on its market and the contingent factors that influence the market in regard to the contingency
theory were crafted. After a number of publications, there has been a motivation on new critical
review of the literature. There has been performance of systematic literature research that lead to
the identification of a good number of articles that were major conferences that had a huge
impact that has been over 1.0. It is clear that trust and security are crucial in the adoption process
and the use of mobile payments. The purpose of this review is to analyze mobile payment
research that has been conducted after the publication of previous literature review. The
objective is to compare the volume, methods used to research, the themes of research and
provide other findings regarding mobile payments. There is also an overview of the
recommendations from the previous literature that have been beneficial in the mobile payment
research. An updated list of recommendations is also provided so as to improve on the future
research of mobile payments.
Research Questions
In this research paper, we are going to consider four research questions. By using these
questions, we will be able to get an understanding of what mobile payments is.
Q1: What is mobile payment?
This question seeks to find out the meaning of mobile payments. When we talk to mobile
payment, what do we mean? It seeks to explain the concept behind mobile payments and all that
is involved during the process.
Q2: How does mobile payments work?
This research question is particularly interested in the technology behind mobile paying. What
technologies are needed to make the process complete? Which technology is used to ensure that
the transaction is secure?

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Q3: What are the benefits of mobile payments?
In this research question, we find out the benefits and the advantages of this technology. Does it
help make the payment process easier? If it does, how does it do that? Are the people accepting
the technology and embracing it? These are some of the answers that the question as a whole
seeks to answer.
Q4: What are the gaps identified in mobile payments?
This is the final question and it involves identifying the gaps that are found within this
technology. It identifies areas that need improvement. This is the question that leads to
recommendations, which are meant to make this technology better and more helpful to human
beings.
Research Methodology
Figure 1 Systematic Literature Review
The review of the literature was done with a very systematic scan of online academic
journal and conference databases. The papers have been sourced from academic sources that are
peer-reviewed, working papers and conference papers while the practitioner sources are the
technical reports and the non-peer reviewed consultant report. The google scholar has hitch the
articles of a variety of sources that have been previously mentioned. The key words that aided in

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the research were the “Mobile Payments”, “Benefits of Mobile Payments in developing
countries”, “How Mobile Payment works” or “Mobile Payments gaps” with a recent time frame
(Urban, 2016). There was a significant change in the number of articles while using different
keywords. For instance the keyword “mobile payments” and “mobile payment” proved to
produce very different results. However, the contents of the research papers was more of the
same. Afterwards, the Scopus which happens to be the largest abstracts and citation databases of
the peer-reviewed literature was then selected. Out of an estimate of thirty-six thousand, three
hundred and seventy-seven titles, only thirty-four thousands three hundred and forty-six journals
are the peer reviewed in the subject field of top-level and has been represented in Scopus. They
mainly serve as the academic source that are majorly considered. There were also some searches
that were made in the INFORMS, that is, the information systems, Wiley Online Library that
was majorly the Electronic Journal of Information Systems in the Developing Countries and the
Africa Journals Online. They were considered to be crucial as they mainly point out and focuses
on the developing countries including the African countries respectively. In this regard, IEEE
which is known as a database that has inclination of either technology or engineering was also
looked into with the help of same parameters (Zheng, Xie, Dai, Chen & Wang, 2017). Using the
same key words research was conducted and a list provided on the findings;
Table 1 Online search results
Electronic database Search description Number of articles
EBSCO Mobile payment
Mobile payment in developing
countries (magazines, trade
publications, Africa and
academic journals)
Mobile payment gaps
10350
6
2
IEEExplore Mobile payment in developing
countries
Mobile payment using Mobile
Wallets
28
3190
INFORMS-Information systems Mobile payment 113
Scopus How Mobile payment works 22

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Mobile payment
43
African journals online(AJOL) Mobile payment 1
Google Scholar How mobile payment works
Mobile payment
Mobile payment gaps
Benefits of mobile payments
2
20
1
2
Wiley online Library(EJISDC) Mobile payment
Mobile payment gaps
160
25
A number of articles found from the research were examined and a number of them eliminated.
This elimination was done through focusing on mobile payment, its benefits and the present
gaps. The trade and news articles were filtered making it possible to access and have the
capability of dealing with the key research papers only for provision of the required information.
Thirty sources were chosen for the expected literature review.
Table 2 Filtered online search results
Electronic database Number of articles
EBSCO 14
IEEExplore 1
Scopus 12
Google scholar 3
Wiley online library 1
African journals online 1
After the thorough article research, it was clear the research papers that were relevant to
this study. Using these papers, a study was done and the research questions were well answered
and documented.

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Results and Analysis
Mobile payment is conceptualized as payment that involves a mobile device to initiate,
activate as well as confirm this process of payment whereby this device has the capabilities of a
mobile phone such as a smartphone. It may involve payments of bills, acquisition or transfer of
money between agents dealing with finances. In this paper, mobile payments can be noted to
focus on digital mobility technologies that are used to help in transactions aside the networks of
telecommunication. The methods of payments are classified according to certain standards that
are analyzed for a proper framework. This framework entails different layers; load bearing, a
core application, network interface, a business and decision making layers. Being a killer
application, two processes are adopted to aid in mobile payments which are account based and
pre-pay. Throughout this process of mobile payment electronic money that is portable and has
the mobility is used to help in their systems that are majorly multi-sided platforms. These
platforms have high technology components that are stabilized and other components that are the
merchants and consumers who are linked by a buyer-to-seller connection. In regard to supply,
there are several dilemma as resources are shared in a big number as well as mobile payments
platforms presented to the consumers making them want to use mobile phones to pay as well as
be paid. The main clients in mobile payments services are the consumers, the merchants,
financial institutions, software, vendors of the handsets, Mobile Network Operators (MNO) as
well as networks that ensure there is positivity from the external forces. Findings from other
sources are;
News Articles
What is mobile payment?
Using a phone or a tablet to pay for a service or a product is referred to as mobile
payment (Collinge, Thompson, Smets, Roberts, & Ward, 2019). Using mobile payment, it is also
possible to transfer funds to family and friends. Examples of mobile payments include services
such as PayPal and Venmo (Morosan & DeFranco, 2016). Recently, majority of the banks have
adopted this technology and by doing so, customers can be able to instantly transfer funds to
family and friends directly from their banks accounts without having to visit the bank. On the
other hand, it is possible to make a mobile payment on site by simply scanning a barcode using
mobile apps or even accepting payments in a convenience store. These charges are deducted
from a preloaded card for that specific store or from a debit or credit card. Mobile payment uses

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encrypted transfer of information and this makes it much safe compared to direct payment using
debit or credit cards (Dorsey, McCauley, Cummins, Monica, Quigley, & McKelvey, 2017).
Mobile payments were initially more popular in Asia and Europe and then later it was adopted in
United States (Bailey, Pentina, Mishra & Mimoun, 2017). As the technology was being
introduced, it involved sending of text messages only but later it was upgraded to incorporate
sending of check pictures that were taken using cell phones.
Figure 2 A depiction of two devices using mobile payment
How mobile payments work
Mobile payment mostly uses mobile wallets. This is basically a digital wallet that is on
your phone. A mobile wallet is associated with a bank account. This makes payments easy
because physical cards will not be needed in order to make payments (Aydin & Burnaz, 2016).
This mobile wallet uses the technology known as, Near Field Communication (NFC). This
technology allows communication of mobile phones and the mobile payment terminal.
Communication using NFC uses radio waves (Pal, Vanijja & Papasratorn, 2015). For security
purposes, this data transfer can only happen within a range of two inches (Bojjagani & Sastry,
2019). Some of the popular NFC payments are Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay.
To pay using your mobile device in a store, you are required to hold the device at most 2 inches
from the payment terminal. Your device and the payment processor will communicate using

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NFC. The payment is processed through passing of information between the two devices using
radio waves. The whole process is executed in seconds and hence it is one of the fastest means of
payment. This kind of payment is often referred to as contactless payment since there is no
physical contact involved (Cocosila & Trabelsi, 2016). With its ability to function most
developing countries, have highly increased the systems of mobile payments facilitating
efficiency in transactions. A good number of consumers have been able to accelerate with the
booming mobile payment market, introducing several mobile payment platforms.
Figure 3 NFC mobile payment
Benefits of mobile payment
Mobile payments are very fast. This is probably the fastest way to make payments for
anything. Roughly, a mobile payment transaction takes about a second to complete. They are
slightly faster than the swipe payment methods, which is used to charge credit and debit cards.
This speed is convenient for stores and it even attracts customers as the queues move faster as a
result of fast check out. On the other hand, they are convenient. It is possible to walk around
cashless and be able to pay for everything as long as you have your mobile phone. The

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convenience that comes with mobile payments is nothing like we have seen in the past.
Additionally, the transactions are very secure. Mobile payments use multiple layers of dynamic
data encryption to make sure that the information for payment is extremely secure. Considering
business owners. Mobile payment draws a lot of customers. This is because customers love the
convenience that comes with this kind of payment (Zhang & Mao, 2020). By integrating this to
the business, customers note that you are keeping up with current trends and this could increase
trust and engagement from customers. On top of it all, as people embrace the mobile payment
technology and fully prefer it over cash payment, this step will be a determinant of which store a
customer is likely to visit (Ma & Fildes, 2020). According to research, it is true to say that,
customers who adopted mobile wallets early have spent almost twice in payment in relation to
those who pay in cash. Considering this aspect, it is clear that a business accepting electronic
payments in much likely to make more profit considered to the other stores which use cash
payment systems (Taylor, 2016).
Gaps in mobile payments
Mobile payment is associated with issues that are dragging down its adoption. From its
design and capabilities to user registration and logins, there is a lot of inconsistency within the
platforms for mobile payments. These inconsistencies are the reason why its adoption is sluggish
(Chavda, 2018). Customers have always had issues with sharing confidential information.
Moreover, as discussed, mobile payments require a lot of financial and personal information to
get started with them (Urban, 2016). This is one of the main reason why customers opt not to
enroll for mobile payments. Most people feel that their private information is at stake and hence
they choose not to share it.
Recommendations
Finding a way to keep the customer information private and confidential is important.
Additionally, it is important to find a way to convince the customers that their information is
very secure so as to increase the number of people signing up for this service. In order to reduce
the concerns regarding security of information, providers of mobile payments must find a way to
ensure that the customer’s data is secure and safe (Yeh, 2018). To make safer the front end,
adoption of biometric and touch ID is very key (Pal, Khethavath, Chen & Zhang, 2017). In
addition to that, encryption of data is also another way to ensure the safety of information.

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Encryption is more concerned with protecting the back end from unauthorized access. Adoption
of other ideas such as tokenization would also be a good way to reduce customer concerns. This
is true because, adopting tokenization would eliminate the use of debit and credit card during the
authorization of a transaction. In this method, a rand combination of number and letter is
generated and used to authorize the transaction (Hagan, Roberts, Wysocki & Logsdon, 2018).
Such measure will ensure that even in the event that hackers gain access to the system, it is still
not possible to access customer information. It is important for customers to feel safe before they
can adopt this method of payment.
Scientific articles
What is mobile payments
Mobile payment includes mobile wallets and mobile money transfers. Mobile payments
can therefore be defined as transaction, which are conducted using mobile phones and are
regulated. Mobile payments eliminate the use of checks, cash and physical credit card when
purchasing or paying bills. Through mobile payment, it is possible to perform these transactions
digitally. Mobile payments ate used widely in peer-to-peer context and even in brick and mortar
businesses. In the case of peer-to-peer, it allows you to send funds to friends or family while in
the context of brick and mortar it allows for payment of services and products (Kalinić, Liébana-
Cabanillas, Muñoz-Leiva & Marinković, 2019).
How mobile payments works
The current world has invested in technologies, which are much secure and safer in
regard to traditional methods. Due to this factor, many people are embracing electronic payment
such as mobile payments. There are several technologies behind the mobile payments. The first
technology is blockchain technology. Most companies are continually adopting this technology
to ensure that their services are modernized and swift (de Luna, Liébana-Cabanillas, Sánchez-
Fernández & Muñoz-Leiva, 2019). Mobile payments largely use this technology because of its
decentralized nature. This feature provides a very strong and almost impossible to crack
protection layer for all transactions. Blockchain technology incorporate the use of encryption and
distribution of ledgers (Zheng, Xie, Dai, Chen & Wang, 2017). These two techniques eliminate
the security risks and ensure that the mobile payment process is safe and secure. The other
technology is the use of digital wallets and POS technologies. Major mobile payment apps like

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Samsung Pay and Apple Pay are working tirelessly to create a society that is cashless. Money is
therefore stored in digital wallets and to make any transactions, the phone’s access controls are
used (Kudesia & Pradhan, 2018). These access controls include fingerprints, passwords and
facial recognition. Digital wallets work in conjunction with NFC- Near Field Communication.
Using NFC the mobile device is able to communicate with the payment processer terminals,
which are installed in the stores. After authorization, the amount is charged from the digital
wallet within a second (Badra & Badra, 2016).
Figure 4 Block chain technology
Benefits of mobile payments
`The benefits of mobile payments include the speed, efficiency and security of the
payment process. Mobile payments have multiple layers of security, which ensures that the
transaction is secure. On the front end, some mobile payments are equipped with biometrics
readers, which helps in the authentication process. This means that no transaction can be
conducted without proper authentication (Himaga & Ogata, 2020). In the back end, mobile
payments use data encryption to make sure that the information being transferred between the
involved parties is safe and secure. The encryption makes sure that any leaked information is not