A Study on Influencing Factors on Users’ Intention to Accept Open Banking: Moderating Effect of Financial Literacy

Abstract

Purpose - This study aims to explore the factors affecting users’ intentions regarding open banking. It extends the Unified theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) by integrating perceived risk, initial trust, and financial literacy into the conceptual models. Since the government allowed open API access to the accounts of fintech firms and commercial banks, open banking has expanded rapidly in Korea from 2019. Understanding the factors influencing users’ intention to use this new system is important, given that open baking is still in the development stage.
 Design/methodology - Conceptual models were adopted from relevant literature and a string of hypotheses were developed. This study analyzed a data set of 439 Korean survey respondents and applied the initial trust model and the united theory of acceptance and use of technology(UTAUT) model.
 Findings - The results of the study show that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and initial trust are the three major factors stimulating the use of open banking, whereas risks negatively affect its adoption. Financial literacy played a moderating role between these factors and the intention to use open banking. There was a difference in the impact of social influence on open banking users due to the degree of financial understanding. In addition, the moderating effect was verified according to the age group, the frequency of open banking use, and the number of accounts owned to check whether there are differences according to the characteristics of each group.
 Originality/value - This study is significant because it uses the level of financial knowledge as a moderating variable in users’ adoption of open banks, and is the first to investigate whether differences in users’ levels of financial knowledge affect their intention to use financial innovation.