There is continued talk about how the mobile payments marketplace is on the verge of explosion. But while a large number of players will remain, the long-term future will gradually become more converged.

That was the verdict of an expert panel at Apps World Europe discussing payments platforms, billing and monetisation strategies.

Dennis Jones, CEO of the rapidly expanding Judo Payments, argued that there will be proliferation and it will continue to give consumers headaches, but it will be good for the industry in the long run. “When it comes down to it with payments, we’re not going to look back in a year and say ‘here’s one platform and it won’,” he said.

Charles Weir, CTO and founder of Penrillian, saw it slightly differently. For the technology underpinning each solution, there will eventually be one approach – but Weir also noted how, like many nascent industries, a lot of the innovative startups will be swallowed up by the big vendors.

“The different solutions will be bought up by the big players at some point in the future,” he said. “Big players aren’t good at innovating, but they’re good at buying into systems that are already working.”

Gunther Egerer, business development digital entertainment at paysafecard.com, made a prescient point: the hundreds of startups, in the majority, are all working off similar formulas, and this should change as the industry converges. “The next big thing is going to be something new. [The startups today] are copying one big thing and working on small details,” he said.

An issue similarly top of mind was consumer demands, and whether the vendors are addressing that. And the panellists were in agreement; payment solutions need to be simple and secure, above all else

“The reason you see a lot of change in mobile payments is because the payments industry has only recently opened up competition,” said Jones. “It’s putting together a lot of technology, but at the end of the day, that should be technology that nobody in this room cares about.

“It should be easy for you and easy for your customers to get paid,” he added.

Egerer agreed. “You trust a system that’s easy working, fast working and which never disappointed you,” he said.

This is easier said than done, of course, and there are challenges, with vendors trying to traverse a fine line between client demands and security best practice.

“What we’ve learned is there’s a tension between the demands of security and the demands of usability that’s actually not very well understood,” said Weir.

“There are not easy guidelines. What you end up having to do is a very iterative process. You decide what you want, and then you look back and see the implications between security, and you go backwards and forwards,” he added.

What’s your view on the state of the mobile payments space? Let us know in the comments…