Perceived eWallet security: impact of COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Purpose Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic forced nationwide lockdown in India. During the period of lockdown usage of eWallet increased by 44%. With the increased usage of digital transactions, cyber-crime attacks also increased as much as by 86%. The socio-economic environment and the peoples’ mindset in the country yet not ready for this kind of rise in digital transactions. The purpose of this study is to capture “security concern” and “comfortability” in regard to using eWallet during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The study further investigated the influence of demographics such as gender and income on “security concern” and “comfortability” in using eWallet. Design/methodology/approach This was an empirical study. The respondents were selected using a purposive sampling method. Only those people who had been using eWallet were included in the survey. The questionnaire was circulated to 100 respondents who agreed to participate in the survey. After scrutiny total of 43 questionnaires were found to be completely filled in all aspects, and thus used for analysis. This study used an innovative multi-method approach for analysis. The hypotheses were tested using two methods: the conventional p-value method and the robust BCa bootstrap method. The effect size was also reported. Findings The findings suggest that female users are more concerned about eWallet security than male users. This study showed that people from the middle-income group are more concerned about the security of digital payments than the people from the lower-income group. Research limitations/implications This study covered the influence of two demographic variables “gender” and “income” on security and comfort in using eWallets. Other demographic variables such as age, education, occupation and area of residence (rural or urban) need to be investigated with the inclusion of rural populations. From the findings of this study, this paper argues that the middle-income group in India is more risk intolerant than the lower-income group while higher and lower-income groups are indifferent. A separate detailed study is recommended for additional support. This study used an innovative multi-method approach of analysis and use of bootstrapping. This may encourage other researchers to adopt such approaches. Practical implications This study showed that irrespective of the forceful adoption; security concerns are prevailing and on the rise. This is an alarm to developers and service providers that, although the use of eWallets increased exponentially during this COVID-19 pandemic, it is a forceful adoption and not willful. They should not get deceived by rise in eWallet users and must endeavor to improve the security of eWallets otherwise, there may be a sharp decline in eWallet users once the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Originality/value This study attempted to capture the comfortability and security concerns of eWallet users during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study used an innovative multi-method approach of analysis and used bootstrapping in addition to the conventional p-value method to test the significance. This study showed that irrespective of the forceful adoption of eWallets owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, security concerns are prevailing and on the rise. The study confirms that gender has an influence on eWallet security. The findings of this study are in partial conformity with the findings of previous researchers.

Digital Payment During Pandemic: An Extension of The Unified Model of QR Code

“…(Eneizan et al, 2019;Khalilzadeh et al, 2017;Mohd Thas Thaker et al, 2021;Musyaffi, 2020;Rahi & Abd. Ghani, 2018;Rosnidah et al, 2019;Sivathanu, 2019;Xu et al, 2019) Meanwhile, during the COVID19 pandemic, security was the primary concern for users (Undale et al, 2020). In the context of security in this research, it is related to digital payment using QR Code, where the main concern is the delivery of sensitive information.…”

The Effect of Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Security Toward Satisfaction and Repurchase Intention

“…Perceived security could be defined or understood as consumers' judgement or perception regarding whether it is secure enough for consumers to conduct a transaction using the system or services offered by a company (Ha and Phan, 2018). In the other words, perceived security deals with the fact that consumers will often judge the security or safety level of a system or technology implemented by a company (Undale et al, 2020). In regard with the concept of perceived security, it should be noted that it would be crucially and significantly important for each and every e-commerce companies to understand the concept of perceived security in a thorough manner, as consumers' judgement or perception regarding whether or not it is safe to conduct some business transactions on the e-commerce platform developed by a company could eventually affect their final decision regarding whether or not they'll buy goods or services from the company.…”

Digital Communication in Post Pandemic Times: Impact on Indian Youth

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