Analysing the payment habits of the University population of Malta

Abstract

People’s needs and wants demand the need to purchase goods and services on a daily basis. As a result, this process leads to the use of various different payment instruments to complete the transaction in hand. Different payment instruments create different types of transactions between the payer and payee, of which some are more efficient than others in terms of both cost and security. This dissertation, entitled ‘Analysing the payment habits of the University population of Malta’, aims to explore the behaviour of Maltese students with respect to their choice of payment instruments when purchasing goods or services. Furthermore, this study aims to understand the reasons behind people’s choice in payment instruments. The rationale behind this study is to understand how the student generation of Malta is going about its payments, and in turn to understand how efficient this generation is being in those choices. In order to gather the required data, a questionnaire was distributed to the University population of Malta, whereby 250 usable replies were obtained. Here, the main findings show that cash is both the most used as well as the most preferred payment instrument by the student population of Malta. Reasons to complement this choice emerged due to its ease and convenience of use, as well as the fact that it is practical in small value transactions. While cash is the favourite instrument among 53% of respondents, there is also a relatively high interest in card payment instruments, with the debit card being the preferred payment instrument of 27% of respondents and the credit card for 15% of respondents. This study shows how abolishing cash and replacing this payment instrument with cards will not appeal to this generation of people since 69% of respondents admitted that they would not consider never carrying cash and only using a card for all payments in the near future. The implication of this finding points to the need for more education of the public on other forms of payment instruments. The education needed relates to both the awareness of other payment instruments as well as the way in which these are used.