Assessing the implementation of digital wallet services in Malta

Abstract

The rapid growth and advancements in mobile technologies (Particularly Smartphones) during these recent years, is shifting our attention towards a more complex usage of such devices, and definitely new opportunities for mobile commerce. Even though current systems offer some evident advantages, people have grown extremely conservative in the management and usage of their financial assets. This has left consumers in a market where many innovations are looked upon with scepticism. There are lots of intuitions and reasons to answer why mobile payment is not being accepted by many consumers. After having identified the lack of such research with regards this topic in Malta, this dissertation aims to shine a light on these questions with the aim to identify factors that have shown consistent relationship with mobile payment adoption. After a detailed analysis of previous literature a survey was administered and shared with a sample population of 447 Maltese consumers. This survey identified the interest of the Maltese population with regards the Digital Wallet services and helped in the realisation of a prototype Mobile payment and Reward application. With the use of focus groups and User acceptance testing, this application was tested and evaluated to the conclusion of the Hypothesis that the Constructs: Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Facilitating Condition, Perceived trust and Social Influences can indeed promote the adoption and usage of a Mobile Payment application.