Exploring Merchant Adoption of Mobile Payment Systems: An Empirical Study

The growth of mobile commerce depends on widely accepted mobile payment systems. Although new mobile payment systems have been increasingly introduced in Asia, Europe and the United States, their adoption has remained modest. Little research has been conducted to examine and explain adopters’ views on the new payment technology. In this article, we explore merchant adoption of mobile payment systems empirically and discuss factors that drive and inhibit their adoption. Our results suggest that the main adoption drivers are related to the means of increasing sales or reducing the costs of payment processing, whereas the barriers to adoption include complexity of the systems, unfavorable revenue sharing models, lack of critical mass, and lack of standardization. Based on our findings, we propose a conceptual framework of adoption enablers, drivers and barriers with propositions to guide future research in this emerging area. Implications for practice and means to overcome the barriers are suggested.