Electronic Payment Systems 201

Disruptive innovation in the payments sector—and indeed the retail financial services industry—does not occur frequently. This is partly due to the dominant position of the incumbent players (primarily banks and payment networks), and partly due to the nature of the sector itself: as they relate to people’s money, banking and payments are not only
inherently conservative, individuals have a lower threshold of risk to experiment with new players or new forms of doing business that dramatically change the status quo.