Use and behavioural intention using digital payment systems among rural residents: Extending the UTAUT-2 model

Abstract

Globally, digital payments and their applications have prospered. However, few researchers have sought to look at users’ adoption behaviour of digital payments, especially among rural residents. Additionally, a majority of the researchers employed a single theoretical framework nation to investigate this behaviour. Considering these two issues as a research gap, this study uses the UTAUT-2 framework to analyze the key factors that contribute to a behavioural intention to use digital payment systems among the rural residents, extended with perceived security and epistemic value as other influencing factors. This study employed a cross-sectional design with survey research as its research approach. The proposed conceptual model was tested using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis on 402 samples with no issues of non-response bias (NRB) and common method bias (CMB). The results indicated that the UTAUT-2 constructs and its extended constructs were positively significantly influencing the behavioural intention with 79.7% of variance explained, where social influence, effort expectancy and epistemic value are the top three constructs that influence the behavioural intention. The outcomes would also be advantageous to the relevant stakeholders in developing and designing strategies to effectively encourage more individuals to adopt digital payment systems, especially among the rural residents.