The mobile payment market continues to evolve and Bank Technology News takes a swing at figuring out why some companies in the space are succeeding while others fail. In a fantastic article today, BTN reviews some recent mobile payment misfires, and some notable early winners, and tries to make some sense of them.

According to BTN, problems for mobile payment start-ups range from the selling of their idea to investors and merchants, building out the technology, and even political hurdles due to their role as financial service companies. The picture BTN paints of the landscape faced by mobile payment companies is actually kind of bleak.

BTN uses Bling Nation and FaceCash, two companies whose travails have been chronicled in Mobile Payments Today, as exemplars of promising mobile payment start-ups that haven't panned out. Bling Nation, which had some great initial press, put its business on hold in June pending a review of its business plan. FaceCash also got some good notice, but thanks to issues obtaining a surety bond, the company stated it will no longer be doing business in its home state of California, all but declaring itself dead.

But BTN notes that companies like Zong, recently purchased by PayPal for $240 million, and Jumio, which raised $6.5 million in Series A funding, seem to be doing something right. They're receiving funding and attracting partners.

BTN attempts to attribute these successes to real, well-thought-out strategies. That might seem a bit premature for early start-ups like Jumio or Naratte, another early start-up BTN says is on a "path to success." After all, BTN once included Bling Nation in a list of "next-gen loyalty solutions" that had "distinguished" themselves. 

In the end, it may be too soon to draw the same conclusions as the BTN article. Is the key "getting to scale" as one payment exec tells BTN? Or is it "find(ing) powerful partners or institutional evangelists?" Maybe.

But Beth Robertson, director of payments research for Javelin Strategy and Research, may have the best, if least helpful, advice in the article.

"There's no accepted standard, and there's still a lack of knowledge on behalf of merchants and consumers about mobile technology," Robertson told BTN. "At this time we're in such an early stage of the market, it's hard to know what's going to shake out."

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