Panel Econometric Analysis on Mobile Payment Transactions and Traditional Banks Effort toward Financial Accessibility in Sub-Sahara Africa

Sustaining Consumer E-Commerce Adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa: Do Trust and Payment Method Matter?

The long-term sustainability of e-commerce usage for improving quality of life is dependent on several factors. Presently, trust and payment methods have emerged as critical factors influencing e-commerce adoption. Consequently, this study investigates the UTAUT determinants of consumer e-commerce adoption in Ghana by focusing on the mediating and moderating roles of trust and payment method. The study employs the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) to estimate the survey response of 535 purposively selected respondents from six regions in Ghana. The results corroborate a direct relationship between the UTAUT variables and e-commerce adoption. However, the payment method suggests no moderating effect on trust and e-commerce adoption connection. Nevertheless, trust significantly mediates the UTAUT variables and e-commerce adoption. Finally, the mediation was highest between social influence and trust but lowest between effort expectancy and trust. This challenges practitioners and managers of e-commerce platforms to consider the mediating role of trust to improve adoption and the sustainable usage of e-commerce.

Fintech Innovations in the Financial Service Industry

Digital transformation underscored by the fourth industrial revolution has led to the emergence of sophisticated technology-enabled financial services known as fintech, that has swiftly altered traditional financial services space. Global adoption of fintech is rapidly increasing due to its disruptive nature and is largely embraced by participants who are underserved by traditional financial service providers. Global investments in fintech are growing rapidly year by year owing to increased interconnectivity with the digital revolution. Fintech is expansive, engulfing a plethora of innovative applications in various services including payments, financing, asset management, insurance, etc. There exists a gap in the literature and visualization research on impact and future pathway of fintech innovations in payments and financial services and role of financial regulations. This study aims to enrich the understanding of fintech innovations in payments and financing and investigate the correlation and significance of regulatory framework in maintaining a fair ecosystem. With this objective, an extant systematic review was performed using research articles published in peer-reviewed journals for the period 2014–2022 when there has been a burgeoning of interest in ‘fintech’ globally. The findings of this study contribute to the theoretical constructs of fintech innovations in the financial services industry and show that such innovations play a crucial role in shaping the nature of future of business. The results of this study have implications for researchers who could deploy this research as a reference point to get a holistic insight and a detailed mapping of innovations in fintech.

The Use of Mobile Payment Systems in Post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery: Primary Research on an Emerging Market for Experience Goods

This study investigated whether mobile payment services could drive post-COVID-19 pandemic recovery in the ‘experience goods’ sector (e.g., tourism) utilising Bandura’s self-efficacy or social cognitive theory. It explored the factors influencing the intention to continue using mobile payment services and the intention to recommend these to others. An empirical survey was conducted to assess the study variables, and the data obtained therefrom were analysed using the industry-standard Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining method. The study results suggest that personal innovativeness and perceived trust influence consumers’ intention to continue using mobile payment services and that perceived trust, personal innovativeness and outcome expectancy influence consumers’ intention to recommend the use of such services to others. The research findings have filled a research gap in emerging markets and can serve as the basis for formulating a winning marketing and operational strategy for nascent technologies such as mobile payment services. It would be naïve to extract findings from mature markets such as East Asia, the European Union and the United States and to apply these to developing markets. In addition, this study’s investigation of the variables that can influence the intention to continue using mobile payment services and to recommend the use of these to others goes into the heart of the sustainability issue because the study’s findings can help mobile payment service providers sustain the use of their applications and thus also sustain the advantages as such.

Are the Blockchain-Based Patents Sustainable for Increasing Firm Value?

Blockchain technology is changing conventional online transaction systems by eliminating payment gateway firms. The blockchain technology is highly attractive and has earned a lot of attention from investors and firms. To protect blockchain technology, firms acquire a patent of blockchain for enhancing the value of their blockchain technology. However, the sustainable value for a patent of blockchain has not been clearly explored. For this reason, our research attempted to explore the relationship between a patent of blockchain and firm value. We used a real options theory and built robust empirical tests based on United State Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) data. We collected the patents of blockchains from 2014 to 2018 and matched financial data from the Compustat database. In total, we found 153 panel observations. Our results suggest that a firm’s patent of blockchain originality and t-1 lagged effects for a firm’s patent of blockchain generality are positively associated with firm value in general. In addition, the sustainable value for the patent of blockchain affects firms differently based on their industry. We found that the sustainable value for the patent of blockchain originality was positively and exclusively associated with the software industry, while the sustainable value for the patent of blockchain generality was positively and exclusively associated with the hardware industry.