Mobile Money Adoption in Emerging Markets: A Case of Ghana

Abstract

The adoption and widespread use of mobile phones in emerging markets have opened up diverse opportunities in financial services such as mobile money transfer. However, mobile money transfer is at different stages of adoption in emerging markets. The main objective of the research was to identify factors that influence consumers‘ intention to adopt mobile money transfer in Ghana. A conceptual research model was developed based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The model predicted that Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Perceived Cost (PC), Perceived Risk (PR), Perceived Trust (PT), Social Influence (SI), Competitive Intensity (CI) could affect behavioural intention to adopt to mobile money. A combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches was employed for this study. The heads of the three mobile money operators were interviewed to understand the operations of mobile money echo system. 320 mobile money users were conveniently selected in Accra to understand questions on their intention to adopt the system. Cross administration case synthesis and hierarchical regression were used for analysing the approaches respectively. Findings revealed that adoption of mobile money transfer in Ghana is affected by factors as perceived usefulness, perceived trust, social influence and competitive intensity. The study also controlled for the effects of age and income on the factors and intention to use mobile money. All these variables established a positive relationship with behavioural intention. It is recommended that different parties of interest for mobile money in Ghana and mobile money providers recognize the need of the factors that affect customers‘ intention to use mobile money and this should be put into consideration, so as to increase its use and encourage its general acceptance.