Prioritizing Factors Affecting the Adoption of Mobile Financial Services in Emerging Markets—A Fuzzy AHP Approach

Abstract

Mobile financial services (MFSs) such as ‘mobile banking’ and ‘mobile payments’ have revolutionized the global banking and financial industry by bringing financial services closer to the consumers. Successful diffusion of various types of MFSs depends on their acceptance and adoption by the end-users (customers). Also, customers make trade-offs while choosing MFSs on the basis of various factors that are important to them. The present study attempts to find the relative importance of various factors that influence the customers’ choice of MFSs. The study also prioritizes three MFSs, namely mobile banking, prepaid instruments (PPIs) and payments banks on the basis of multiple factors. The present problem is modelled as a multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem, wherein fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) is used to rank the potential factors of MFS selection and to evaluate various MFSs. The findings of the study reveal that functional benefits and economic benefits dominate over trust and perceived risks in customers’ decision-making regarding the selection of MFSs. With regard to the evaluation of the three MFSs, the findings indicate that payments bank is the superior choice as it offers best economic and functional benefits and involves minimum risks. The findings of the study may help MFS providers, to evaluate critical factors of adoption of MFSs. This may help them in achieving cost-effective implementation of MFSs by efficiently managing their resources.