Continuance Intention to Use Mobile Payments in Malaysia: Integrating Innovation Resistance Theory and Switching Cost

Abstract

Over recent years, the traditional payment method (i.e. cash) has been gradually replaced by cashless payment. Malaysian mobile payment users are gradually adapting to the new payment method (i.e. cashless payment). This indicates that the usage of cashless payment shows a current popularity trend in the daily routines of people. Furthermore, the Covid19 outbreak has become a catalyst to boost the usage of mobile payments among the mobile users. In Malaysia, mobile payment transactions accounted for a significant proportion in the total amount of annual transactions. According to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (2020), the total cashless transactions in 2019 was higher than the past two years which was RM 18.2 billion made from 2094 million transaction. Up to date, Malaysians are using electronic wallets (i.e. Grab, Touch n Go, Boost and others) and Quick Response (QR) payment (i.e. QR code available in mobile banking applications) to conduct their mobile payments. The Innovation Resistance Theory has been applied in this study to provide a better insight of continuance intention of using mobile payments. Moreover, this theory attempts to identify the barriers that are faced by users when they try to adopt a new innovation. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between different barriers (i.e. usage barrier, value barrier, risk barrier, tradition barrier and image barrier) and switching cost with respect to the continuance intention of Malaysian mobile payment users to use mobile payment. This study was conducted through a quantitative method. The purposive sampling method has been chosen because the respondents must have usage experience of mobile payment in order to quality to answer the survey. Data collection was collected through self-administrated survey responses. In order to ensure the research instrument was suitable in the Malaysian context, a questionnaire was adopted and adapted which underwent a pilot test to affirm it was feasible for model testing and hypothesis checking. The results of the pilot study reflected that the reliability and discriminant validity of the 34 questions instrument was well established, and this instrument could be applied in the future. Also, the partial least squares-based structural equation modelling was used for analysing the data once the data collection was completed. In short, this research framework is applicable in the future since mobile payment is a common trend in Malaysia. This study contributes to the theory by including switching cost and applying it into the continuance intention to use mobile payment services. It is believed that the study will be able to assist the marketers to remove those barriers which inhibit the mobile users from further use of the cashless payment service. Also, they might benefit from creating a better design mechanism for the applications which can continuously improve their mobile payment service in the future.