Motivating mobile payment adoption during global pandemic: insights from protection motivation and theory of planned behavior

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching effects on society and will continue to be a subject of study for researchers in the years to come. Businesses have implemented technologies that reduce reliance on physical currencies, such as e-commerce sites and contactless payments. This study aims to examine the users’ attitudes and behaviors toward mobile payments. The focus is on identifying the most effective techniques and approaches that businesses can use to encourage user adoption of mobile payments. Design/methodology/approach This study uses survey data from 396 active mobile payment users across the mid-west region of the USA to test the proposed hypothesis. The snowball sampling approach is used to sample the participants for the data collection. This study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the ten hypotheses proposed in this study. Findings This study finds that organizational commitment and privacy customization can significantly overcome users’ protective attitudes toward mobile payments during the pandemic. In addition, providing users with privacy customization options can significantly encourage self-disclosure, which is crucial for transaction authentication and fraud detection. Originality/value Envisioned in the backdrop of the COVID pandemic, this is one of the earliest studies investigating the role of privacy customization, self-disclosure and organizational commitment on mobile payment adoption.