European Mobile Ops See Mobile Payments as Way to Avoid "Dumb Pipe"

European mobile operators, for better or worse, seem to think that now is the time to get into the mobile payments and mobile wallet businesses, before they are reduced to "dumb pipe" providers in one more application space.

Peter Van Leeuwen, strategy and business development manager for KPN, believes that mobile networks and banks are in danger of not gaining ownership of the m-commerce channel and being relegated to being "bit pipes" in the value chain. Watch a video here.

Whether that is a legitimate fear some will question. The larger question might be the extent to which mobile operators can establish key roles in developed markets, as compared to developing regions, where the business case and mobile operator role would seem to be much clearer.

The difference in market potential is simple. "Payments and banking" are not broken processes in the developed world. In the developing world, those functions are, in fact, quite undeveloped. To succeed in developed markets, mobile operators and others must create new value, not just displace existing payment systems.

In developing markets, the value is clear and obvious. No existing business has to be disrupted to succeed. The value there is not "a better way to pay," but "you can use a bank."

European operators dash for m-commerce involvement