2015, was an exciting year for the Mobile Payments space with segment leader, Square, going public, at an opening price of $11.20.
According to the report, the year witnessed its highest-ever funding, at ~$2B, contributing a significant portion to the total funding of $5.6B over the last 9 years. India’s mobile payment startup Paytm contributed heavily to this total, raising $890M from the Alibaba Group.
Other notable investments were - $68M of iZettle backed by Zouk and Intel Capital, $13.5M of Revel Systems backed by Roth Capital Partners and WCAS,  $72M of Tyro Payments backed by Tiger Global, $25M of Mobikwik backed by Cisco Investments, Sequoia Capital, American Express, Tree Line Capital Partner, $8.9M seed and $10M Series A funding of Yoyo Wallet backed by Wayra and Imperial Innovation respectively. 
Source : Tracxn Blog
What is also apparent from the funding activity, where a single startup raised ~45% of the year’s total investments, is the fact that 2015 saw a dip in the number of funding rounds, which has been in decline over the last two years. This is a clear indication of the rise of late stage funding which accounted for ~ 30% of the total rounds in 2015, and a total sum of ~$1B. As the sector continues to mature, we should see more such rounds in 2016.
Signs are positive for the sector, considering its reliance on the upward trend of mobile adoption which is increasing by 1.5% quarter-on-quarter and around 5% year-on-year. By 2020, it is expected that 70% of world’s population will have smartphones, which further bodes well for the mobile payments space. The mobile payments market in 2016 is expected to reach $27.1B, with users spending an average of $721.5 annually, which is a positive sign, and should encourage further investments into the space in the next few years.
But due to the sector reaching maturity, we should see most of the money coming from late stage rounds in the next few years, a sentiment which has clearly been recognized by startups in the space. This is evident from the significant drop in new companies founded during 2015, over the previous year.
Source : Tracxn Blog
The number of companies founded was maximum in 2014 at 149, though there is a relatively same number of start-ups over the period 2012-2014. The major companies like Square, iZettle were founded before 2010, which consequently led to a boom in mPoS companies. From 2014, however, the focus has seemed to change towards mobile wallets pertaining to various applications like dining, bill payments and money transfer coming into existence.
The mPoS sector has gained multiple and big funding rounds and new players pouring in it everyday, with major players like Square, iZettle, Payleven, PowaPOS, Shoopkeep; providing point of sale software and a card reader and Lighspeed POS, Revel Systems; providing efficient point of sale software only. There is a simultaneous trial to shift to cardless payments via mobile wallets and wearable. The mobile wallet sector, globally has some big names, like, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay, along with new giant entries like Chase Pay, Barclays Pay, LG Pay etc. But, recent surveys have shown the adoption of these giant mobile wallet platforms are not that encouraging. Of the iPhone 6/6s users, only 5.1% use it to pay.
Over the next few years, we can expect to see a shift towards Contact-Less Payments through technologies such as NFC and Wearable Technology. This is evident from AliBaba’s announcement on partnering with Xiaomi for Mobile Payments on Wearables. Also, while Samsung and Apple have been focusing on getting their NFC Payment models mainstream, JP Morgan Chase also announced plans to launch its own mobile payment solution called Chase Pay, which works with barcodes to allow customers to pay for goods and services in-store, in mobile apps or for online purchases at retailers, including Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Shell.
MarsterCard is also aggressively jumping onto the Mobile Payments bandwagon and is working with several firms to bring mobile payments to just about every product consumers have. The credit card company is planning to work with fashion designers to automakers to embed mobile-payment technology in their products. MasterCard has already partnered with General Motors, as well as wearable technology companies Nymi and Ringly, and plans to add more companies as time goes on.
The interoperability of wallets, however, is still not explored, but, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), developed by National Payment Corporation of India, tends to eliminate that as well. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Note – The report contains companies which offer mobile as an alternative payment method, besides cash and card payments, like mobile wallet, carrier billing and wearable. This report includes companies which enable merchants to accept card payments at the point of terminal on their mobiles and provide mobile/tablet based point of sale software platforms to the merchants. In addition, report contains companies which provide mobile payment gateways for PoS and wallet transactions.