The number of people using mobile wallets, financial management software, apps, on their smart phone that allow them to make payments, is increasing. Work in the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management looks at the adoption of mobile wallets across India. Uptake there and in other developing nations is significant but there are many challenges that face putative users and those offering the services that are not so apparent in the developed world.
Ravi Kumar Gupta of the Department of Humanities and Management Science at the Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, has collected data from 500 respondents in the Gorakhpur District of Uttar Pradesh to learn more about user and potential user perception of mobile wallets. He used regression, factor analysis and structural equation modelling to process the data.
There are an estimated 500 million smart phone users in India and that number is rising every day. A fraction of those are using a mobile wallet, but that fraction will likely only increase over time. The growth of the middle-income demographic across India is the underlying driver for this increase in technology adoption.
Gupta points out that while people of all ages are using smart phones, much of the growth in mobile wallet use among the younger demographic. That said, he has found from the survey of 500 people that risks associated with security and privacy are serious concerns that dissuade some people from using a mobile wallet. Conversely, ease of use and social influence both correlate positively with adoption of this technology.
Gupta, R.K. (2022) ‘Adoption of mobile wallet services: an empirical analysis’, Int. J. Intellectual Property Management, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.341–353.