This paper focuses on the triumph march of mobile phones that currently are annexing music players,
navigation devices, and cameras as separate physical objects. The next target is set on payment.
Through synthesizing available literature, we construct a framework for studying digital payment
platforms that combines platform, technology and business design aspects. The framework is applied
to conduct a comparative case study of digital payment platforms. Four types of market actors are
considered: banks, mobile network operators, merchants, and startups, which are incumbents and
disrupters in the payment industry. These actors issue four types of payment systems, and we can
observe that three of four platforms types can be classified as multi-sided platforms (MSP). All
alternatives seek foothold by issuing evolutionary payment instruments, which are intertwined with
digital payment platforms. By hosting third-party services, payment instruments are evolving from
single-purpose to multi-functional ones. Our research extends existing payment literature from the
MSP perspective to emphasize certain digital payment platform components, which impact strategies
and complementary products.