What are the Hurdles for m-commerce ?

I would say that aside from security per se there are three main hurdles to be overcome for mobile payments m-commerce worldwide:

1 - Standards: Current potential client and end user expectations will be that legacy or near-term wireless networks built to current standards (e.g., 802.11) will support the initial round of m-commerce, and to some extent this is already coming to fruition. However in developing 3G and 4G applications, certainly a new suite of standards will need to be developed by the appropriate bodies (e.g., IEEE, ETSI) that are designed to support large-scale commercial transactions as a key element of basic service.

2 - Standardization: Beyond the standards themselves, it will be essential from some level of coordination among industry actors to ensure that financial transactions infrastructure is efficiently deployed across the ICT ecosystem and involves common equipment platforms and operational procedures—for example that the ability to purchase a business luncheon, airport parking, a plane ticket, a taxi and a hotel room might be accomplished using the same mobile handheld device and application. I expect that road user (i.e., tolling) and congestion charging, being planned for wide scale development as they are by governments primarily as a means of revenue capture and environmental enhancement, respectively, may be a key driver for this with the potential to add on other mobile payment services.

3 - Regulatory: M commerce brings a merge of two of the more closely and increasingly regulated disciplines on the planet together, namely financial services and ICT. Financial regulators will want to focus naturally enough on accurate reporting and tracking of transactions nationally and internationally to prevent mistake, fraud and the support of criminal activity to include an enhanced focus on funding global terrorism. Concurrently telecoms regulators will focus on their perennial responsibility of insisting on the provision of appropriately priced and widely available services to the benefit of the broadest segment of the public as possible with as few restrictions as possible (e.g., bundling of services). Add on top of this dichotomy both privacy concerns—and by this I mean not security itself but assurance of the proper and limited dissemination of personal information both for m-commerce and non m-commerce users using the same network. Yet one more layer of oversight will involve antitrust/monopoly concerns, which are often at least perceptively at odds with the benefits of standardization discussed in 2 above. I expect this issue will be particularly thorny in the EU where the European Commission has well established plenary power to regulate market actors against SMP, yet (absent member state ratification of the initiative for an integrated telecoms market introduced in November), relatively limited control of telecoms across border, with these currently left to individual NRAs (referencing here my own open question on spectrum regulation).

Those are a few of my rambling thoughts. As always, they are my own opinions rather than those of current or past clients or employers, and as always I am more than open to friendly and well-reasoned debate on this complex, important and fascinating subject.