Abstract
In 2008, the Government of Ghana (GoG) through the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GHIPSS) launched a smart card called e-zwich which formed a central part of the government’s plan to move the country towards a cashless economy. Modernization of the cash sector has remained at best in a confused state since it was launched and at worst an embarrassing drawback. In this article, we employ the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the structural equation model to estimate users' behavioral intentions and actual usage of the cashless system. The structural results show that eleven out of the fourteen hypotheses are statistically significant, while the remaining three are statistically insignificant. The results also indicate that performance efficiency, effort efficiency, and social influence significantly influence the behavioral intentions of people to use the cashless system, and the age and gender of users significantly moderate the three constructs. Behavioral intentions and facilitating conditions are also found to influence actual usage of the cashless system significantly. This study fills the gap in the applicability of the UTAUT model in a central cashless system acceptance and usage. The study also provides empirical evidence on how demographic factors such as age, education, and gender moderate the relationships among the major constructs of the UTAUT model. For the first time, we support the empirical findings on the moderating effect of age in the UTAUT model with established economic theory, the life-cycle theory. We have outlined recommendations in detail on some important considerations needed to achieve smart financial economy in Ghana, and such achievement could be emulated by other countries that are yet to implement a central cashless system.
Highlights
Money has evolved from the era of cowries, shells, coins, papers to contemporary electronic or digital currency
The R square values for the dependent variables, Actual Usage (AU) and Behavioral Intention (BI) are both 0.26 considered large accuracy threshold, this indicates that the model is accurate
The results indicate that performance efficiency, effort efficiency and social influence significantly influence the behavioral intentions of people to use the cashless system and the three constructs are significantly moderated by the age and gender of users
Summary
Money has evolved from the era of cowries, shells, coins, papers (banknotes) to contemporary electronic or digital currency. Digital money is the new normal in the world of commerce especially in developed and some developing economies owing to its profound socio-economic impacts besides security, convenience and cost reduction advantages enshrined in its usage. Most nations are fully embracing the idea of a comprehensive cashless economy. It is increasingly becoming unusual to see customers pull out cash from their wallets to effect payment. In a country like Sweden, more than 59 percent of consumer transactions are completed via non-cash methods, according to the research conducted by Forex Bonuses in 2017. In the United State of America, digital payment mostly via credit cards has been part of their culture for years, and according to Forex Bonuses, each individual within the state possesses about three credit cards
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