Drivers of Mobile Payment Acceptance in China: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

With the rapid development of mobile technologies in contemporary society, China has seen increased usage of the Internet and mobile devices. Thus, mobile payment is constantly being innovated and is highly valued in China. Although there have been many reports on the consumer adoption of mobile payments, there are few studies providing guidelines on examining mobile payment adoption in China. This study intends to explore the impact of the facilitating factors (perceived transaction convenience, compatibility, relative advantage, social influence), environmental factors (government support, additional value), inhibiting factors (perceived risk), and personal factors (absorptive capacity, affinity, personal innovation in IT (PIIT)) on adoption intention in China. A research model that reflects the characteristics of mobile payment services was developed and empirically tested by using structural equation modeling (SEM) on datasets consisting of 257 users through an online survey questionnaire in China. Our findings show that perceived transaction convenience, compatibility, relative advantage, government support, additional value, absorptive capacity, affinity, and PIIT all have a positive impact on adoption intention, while social influence has no significant impact on adoption intention, and perceived risk has a negative impact on adoption intention. In addition, the top three factors that influence adoption intentions are absorptive capacity, perceived transaction convenience, and additional value.