Drivers and barriers of mobile payment adoption: Malaysian merchants' perspective

The Malaysian market consists of a large consumer-base carrying mobile phones. However, the adoption and proliferation of mobile (m-) payments remain dismal. Evidence from the literature necessitates the need for elucidating the adoption barriers and drivers from multiple perspectives. There has been much research on consumer adoption and usage of mobile payment systems, but there is a lack of research on this subject from the merchants' perspective. Taking into account the critical role merchants play in promoting a sustainable m-payment ecosystem, this work elucidates the perspective of merchants in Malaysia vis-a-vis m-payment systems. In-depth interviews with merchants from multiple retail categories were conducted to gain insight into their motivational drives, barriers, and challenges in the context of the adoption and implementation of m-payment systems in Malaysia. The results confirmed that the relative advantage of decreasing payment processing time and fees, convenience, and enhanced payment security features are some of the factors motivating merchants to adopt m-payment, while technological incompatibility, complexity, the cost of investment, and the lack of critical mass and knowledge are some of the factors discouraging merchants from doing so. Our findings further expand the limited knowledge of m-payment systems in the context of Malaysian merchants, which is valuable for industries and policymakers. The results of this study can be generalised to other m-payment systems in other countries - Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay, with Apple Pay, Alipay, and WeChat.