Electronic Payment System Adoption In Developing Economy Information Technology Essay

The advent of the Internet has brought about a dramatic growth in the volume of online transactions all over the world. These business activities include electronic fund transfer (EFT), supply chain management, e-Marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI) and automated data management among others [Ayo 2008]. E-payment is a subset of e-governance which is the application of electronic means in the interaction between Government and Citizens, and Government and Businesses. It is a form of direct payment and banking without physical appearance at the Bank through the means of electronic, interactive communication channels and other technology infrastructure. E-payment can be described as the method of effecting payments from one end to another end through the medium of the computer without manual intervention beyond inputting the payment data.

In Nigeria, the modernization of the payment process started with the introduction of the MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition), followed by the establishment of ATMs (Automated Teller machine) for cash dispensing, account balance enquiry and payment of utility cheques. In 1993, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), introduced the use of payment cards (smartcard). Similarly in 2004, CBN introduced a broad guideline on e-banking which included the introduction of ATM, e-money products such as credit and debit cards. Currently, there is a real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system that eliminates the risks involved in large-value payment. The new Internet money, that is the form of money using Internet as the main transaction mode, builds on payments instruments such as credit cards and direct debit and credit and electronic versions of cash and checks. It differs from earlier forms of money in that it is both impersonal and virtual. There is no identifiable person at the other end of the transaction as when paying via EFTPOS (Electronic fund Transfer Point of sale) or with a plastic card across the counter. It does not result in physical cash unlike the ATM or EFTPOS withdrawals. Internet money also does not automatically generate a physical record which is evidential in nature. The closest approximation to Internet money is using the plastic card over the phone, fax or mail. But the phone, fax and mail are less virtual than the Internet in the sense that the potential for personal interaction and a physical record of transaction is greater [Singh 1996]. One of the biggest challenges in the development of electronic commerce has been for banks and merchants to overcome the issues of customer identification and account verification for online purchases. While the credit card systems have a process in place to verify and authorize transactions, the Internet poses challenges for merchants to not only validate that funds are available in an account, but to positively identify that the customer is in fact authorized to use that account for purchases. [Denny S 1998]

However, not much success has been achieved in terms of evolving an efficient payment system that may have stemmed from attitudinal and social problems as manifested in the huge amount of money that resides outside the banking sector. Nigeria is largely a cash-based economy with over 90% of funds residing outside the banking sector as against the developed such as UK (4%) and USA (9%) [Ojo 2004, Ovia 2003]. The cash-based economy is characterized by the psychology to physically hold and touch cash: a culture informed by ignorance, illiteracy, and lack of security consciousness and appreciation of merits digital payment. [Ayo 2006]. The cash based nature of the Nigerian economy has to a great extent, hindered the participation of her citizens in e-commerce where e-payment is the acceptable means of settling transactions. For e-commerce to be successful, an efficient e-payment system is the key. The use of formal payment systems also enhances the ability to execute and manage monetary policies, which is essential for a country’s financial sector. Although Nigeria is a regional leader, the use of e-Payments is low despite its many benefits and attempts by the financial authorities to make the public accept the electronic payment system.

The slow pace of development of e-payment in developing countries could also be attributed to lack of adequate infrastructure, low Internet penetration, absence of open standards/trust among banks and providers as well as absence of adequate legislation or national policy on IT development. According to Ezeoha [2006a], image problem is another issue. The Advance Fee Fraud code-named 419, is one of the most popular Internet frauds and is perceived to be rampant in Nigeria. Consequently, there has been outright rejection of payment cards issued by Nigerian banks on the international arena.

The aim of this study is to analyse the performance of e-payment systems in Nigeria from the users’ perspectives. It investigates the factors that affect individual’s intention to adopt e-payment in Nigeria. In Section 2.0, we review some existing literature on e-payment especially in developing countries. Section 3.0 considers some e-payment systems available in Nigeria, while Section 4 presents the research framework. The methodology of the study is explained in Section 5, while the data analysis and discussion of results are presented in Section 6. Some conclusions are drawn in Section 7.

2.0 REVIEW OF RELATED WORKS

The advent of the Internet has brought about a dramatic growth in the volume of online transactions all over the world. These business activities include electronic fund transfer (EFT), supply chain management, e-Marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI) and automated data management among others (Vladimir, 2003). The current dot com era has witnessed a lot of changes arising from the growth in information and communication technology (ICT). The ICT has remained the dominant factor and platform for business transactions. The traditional e-Commerce involved carrying out commercial transactions electronically using technology like EDI and EFT (Haaq et al, 2000). Currently, e-Commerce has emerged as the convergence of business practices and information technologies such as computer networking and telecommunications; client/server computing, multimedia and hypermedia systems; information retrieval systems; electronic data interchange; message handling and workflow management systems; groupware and electronic meeting systems; and public-key cryptography (Vladimiri, 1996). e-Commerce is made possible by e-payment systems, which enable transactions to be carried out seamlessly without physical contact.

The emergence of e-commerce has created new financial needs, which cannot be effectively fulfilled by the traditional system of payment. More so, all interested parties are exploring various types of electronic payment system and issues surrounding electronic payment system. With the growing complexities in the e-commerce transactions, different electronic payment systems have been identified and classified. Dennis (2001) classified electronic payment system into two categories: (1) Electronic Cash and (2) Electronic Debit-Credit Card Systems. Kalakota and Whinston (1996) identified three types of electronic payment systems: (1) Digital Token based electronic payment systems, (2) Smart Card based electronic payment system and (3) Credit based electronic payment systems. Anderson (1998) classified electronic payment systems into four: Online Credit Card Payment System, Electronic Cheque System, Electronic Cash System and Smart Card based Electronic Payment System. Murthy (2002) further classified electronic payment systems into six, based on the kinds of information being transferred online: (1) PC-Banking (2) Credit Cards (3) Electronic Cheques (i-cheques) (4) Micro payment (5) Smart Cards and (6) E-Cash. Each payment system has its advantages and disadvantages for the customers and merchants. These payment systems vary in terms of security, acceptability, convenience, cost, anonymity, control, and traceability requirements.

Electronic payment system is conducted in different e-commerce categories such as Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to-Business (C2B) and Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C). Each category of e-commerce has special characteristics such as value of order and ease of transaction. Danial, (2002) classified electronic payment systems in terms of the type of e-commerce and the value of money involved as follows: 1). Micro Payment (less than $ 10) that is mainly conducted in C2C and B2C e-commerce, 2). Consumer Payment (between $ 10 and $ 500) conducted mainly in B2C transactions, and 3). Business Payment (more than $ 500 value) conducted mainly in B2B e-commerce. Cavarretta and de Silva (1995) had a wider range in the last two of the categories: 1). Tiny value transactions (below $1), 2). medium value transactions (between $1 and $1000), and 3). large value transactions (above $1000). According to Turban et al (2004), B2B transactions account about 95% of e-commerce transactions, while others account about 5%. The C2C category transactions, is relatively small due to its stiff usability. According to Cavarretta and de Silva (1995), systems that can support tiny value transactions have to trade-off between conveniences of transactions (the major part of a cost in an extremely cheap transaction) vs. the security or durability of transactions. On the other side of the amount range, large value transactions will require highly secure protocols whose implementations are costly: be on-line and/or carry traceability information. Nearly all the systems can perform medium value transactions.

Different countries are likely to prefer the different forms of electronic payment system; however, the credit card payment system seems to be universal. In 2003, 94.1% of all worldwide e-commerce transactions were conducted using credit cards (Pago, 2003). Even today, Credits cards are dominant form of online payment all over the world. This is especially true about the developed and fastest developing countries. Most of these transactions were carried out in the USA. Only 50 % of consumers outside the USA engage in credit card transactions (Landon and Traver, 2002). Most of the developing countries rely much more on electronic funds transfer and smart cards based electronic payment system. Very few percent of people have credit cards and use of e-cheque is in vogue Sumanjeet (2008). Outside the US, electronic payment system is heavily influenced by the host country’s financial infrastructure (Lawarence, 2000). Added to these, legal regimes, IT Infrastructure, economic and social conditions, are the strong determinants of the methods of online payment and all these vary from country to country and even within the country.

Poor countries still rely on traditional cash and cheque system; they are not very much familiar with the electronic payment system because of poor infrastructure, poor economic conditions, lack of education etc. rate of adoption of e-payment system is not very encouraging in these countries. Uzoka and Seleka (2006) identified the following factors that militate against e-commerce development in Africa: Internet marketing factor, organizational factors, Internet logistic and access factor, security and legal factor, customer demographic factor, internet development factor, and media’s negative reporting on ecommerce and fraud related issues. Developing countries, especially in Africa, tend to lack the infrastructural, economic, and socio-political framework for the development of electronic-commerce in comparison to developed countries. E-commerce thrives on the utilization of credit cards and other e-payment systems. Cash driven economies need to develop a system of participation in the international e-market place by encouraging the establishment of credit management firms within their economies.

Ayo et al (2008) carried out a PEST (political, economic, social and technological) analysis of e-Commerce in Nigeria. The findings of the study revealed that the Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) is the most widely used medium of e-Payment in Nigeria. Similarly, the low level of Internet penetration was identified as one of the major threats to e-Commerce implementation. As suggestion was made for private and public partnership (PPP) in order to evolve a viable framework for e-commerce in Nigeria and other African countries. The PPP would involve a consortium of stakeholders (private and public partnership) consisting of merchants, customers, issuers, telecoms operators, card manufacturers and government officials among others to: 1). Popularize e-payment systems, 2). Provide infrastructure for increased access to Internet services, 3). Provide security and trust in online transactions.

3.0 SOME PAYMENT SERVICES PROVIDED BY BANKS IN NIGERIA

(Bolu, can you re-write this section to make it brief and organized. I think it is an important section)

These days most banks of Nigeria offer internet banking services in enabling the customers to have access to banking transactions online, from the suitable places like their residence or offices. The expansion and getting of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and credit or debit cards also control helpfully on the country’s e-commerce growth. In fact, e-commerce development in Nigeria is sluggish but steady. The beginning of e-commerce services is fixed confidently by a requirement of people’s information on how to make use of the brand new technologies. Nigerian citizens can pay, withdraw or transfer funds everywhere in the country.

Adeyemi Adeyinka, Managing Partner, Intermac Consulting, an integrated consulting firm with focus on e-business with particular emphasis on e-banking and e-payment intermediation observed that Nigeria has continued to make steady progress towards ensuring full banking transaction automation with the value of e-payment rising to N360 billion in 2008. He noted that the increase in the adoption of the electronic model is not only driven by the need for electronic services but also by the love and speedy uptake of new technologies by Nigerians. Most astonishing, is the fact that the uptake of technology in the country cuts across all strata of society. This is even as artisans, market women and okada riders make use of the e-payment systems as well as the upwardly mobile professionals. All these are great indications that there is a lot of prospect for electronic payment in Nigeria.

Experts say that with the mass market in Nigeria constituting about 70 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the impact of deploying cards and other electronic mode of banking in the country has led to increased reach, as customers can now access their accounts even at locations where their banks are not located through the electronic banking models. They also say that the introduction of various e-models has led to low operational costs, increased operational efficiency, removing cost of cash transactions, multicard and multi application availability, reduced congestions in banking halls amongst others.

Nigerian citizens also can buy with their e-cards thanks to such e-payment providers as Interswitch, Master Card, Visa Card and e-transact. The current growth and expansion of Western shopping malls in Nigeria is also awfully significant. The part of e-commerce that has expanded in Nigeria generally is e-banking. These days the greater parts of the Nigerian banks offer online and real-time banking services. Online banking systems have by now become usual for Nigerian customers as they are provided the flexibility in service their accounts in any branch of their bank’s system.

Banks are too gradually more looking to card-based payment explanation away from the extensively accepted electronic reward though these are slow to take off such as debit and credit cards. The service to be developed considerably in Nigeria is an ATM system and A few banks initiated the ATM Consortium in 2003 to set up ATMs around the country.

2.14.1 Xpath/Xpath PIN vending

This is a bank collection method that allows your customers receive payments electronically for services rendered to clients irrespective of their location in the country with or without the use of customized deposit slips lodged at any location of Zenith Bank Plc with notifications via email or mobile SMS on each transaction.

Xpath PIN Vending is an option that enables the sale of unique pins or serial numbers (numeric or alphanumeric) for the specific purpose of providing a secure product or services

2.14.1.1 Benefits:

Reduces the risk & cost associated with of handling cash.

Reduce overhead cost of operation.

Enables fast and easy payment processing.

Online monitoring console and log or transactions available.

Wider payment outlets

Eliminates fraud

2.14.2 Z-Mobile

This is a payment service provided to customers by Zenith Bank’s mobile banking product. It enables you to carry out various banking and payment transactions on your mobile phone. It runs as a menu driven application and it eliminates the use of series of strings as it is on our previous mobile link. Such strings like: “BAL*CA*PIN” – for Current Account or “BAL*SA*PIN” – for Savings Account are now being replaced with a menu driven application with more options to serve our customers better.

2.14.2.1Features

Check account balance

View mini statement of account

Transfer funds from card to account, card to mobile and card to card

Mobile phone credit top up for Glo, MTN and Celtel

Pay Bills e.g. DSTV

2.14.2.2 Benefits

Customers have access to their accounts anywhere nationwide. Access outside the country is available only if the customer activates his roaming facility.

Customers can conveniently monitor their account activities

Zmobile application is card based, more secure and menu driven

2.15 Webpay

This is Zenith’s online payment solution for merchants who have E-Commerce enabled websites, and want customers to pay for goods and services purchased directly from the website. WebPay will allow users to make payments for goods and services directly, via the Merchant’s website. WebPay provides a payment link between the web merchant and the potential buyer. It enables anybody to purchase products and pay for services rendered via the merchant’s website.

Figure2. 1-Webpay card

2.16 V-PAY

V-pay card is a secured chip-based debit card acceptable only in Nigeria and runs on the robust platform of Visa International online real time. Our VPay card enables you to PAY for the exact amount of goods purchased; fuel your car without holding cash etc. Your loved ones in Diaspora can transfer money to your V-pay card for you to withdraw using the ATM. This service is provided by the intercontinental bank of Nigeria.

2.16.1 Features of a V-PAY

It is a secured chip based debit card acceptable only in Nigeria.

Has a large memory to store a lot of other personal data e.g. Health Data, Insurance data e.t.c. a function that cannot be performed by a magnetic stripe card.

It is used to make purchase on Point of Sale (POS) and make cash withdrawal on ATM 24/7

Can be used as a branded corporate

Can serve as a multi purpose Card for an ID Card and Security Access control card TRAVEL CARDS to promote organizations’ image beyond the shores of Nigeria

Allows business owners/authorized employees access to funds from their businesses’ demand/current deposit accounts

Can be used for the payments of utility bills (PHCN, Water e.t.c)

V-Pay Card is accepted anywhere the V-Pay or VISA signage is displayed in Nigeria

Seamless migration from local V-Pay cards to International

2.16.2 Benefits of V-pay card

Instant card- easy and quick to obtain

Minimum documentation required

Very low charges

Cardholders can receive money from friends and loved ones in Diaspora via V-Money Transfer platform – link

Safe and secure as chip is not easily compromised

Cardholder’s bio-data can be programmed on the chip

2.17 Intercontinental Bank Card service

2.17.1 Intercontinental visa card

Intercontinental Bank Plc Visa Card is a Chip & Pin Enabled Payment System which is globally recognized and accepted in over 170 countries, 1 million ATMs and over 29 million merchant outlets. It can be used to transact and make payments across multiple channels like:

Automated Teller Machines (ATM)

Point of Sale terminals (POS)

Internet

Telephone orders

2.17.1.1 Corporate Visa Card

The Corporate Visa Card will offer your organization an effective method of managing your employees’ expenses with streamlined reporting and reconciliation capabilities that will further provide your organization an ideal cash management solution.

2.17.1.2 Visa Prepaid Card

This is an instant un-personalized prepaid, reloadable spending card that can be used to make purchases everywhere Visa is accepted. The perfect card to be used by parents who needs to control their children spending, for shopping on the internet, as a gift, for payment of international association dues, sending funds to a loved one abroad, etc.

2.17.1.3 Visa Classic Debit

Visa Classic Debit Cards comes in any of the following combinations. Visa Debit (NGN) account ONLY, Visa Debit (USD) account ONLY & Visa Debit (GBP) account ONLY

2.17.1.4 Visa Classic Credit Card

Visa Classic Credit Card is the most popular card; it’s simple, widely available and provides everything you need to cover your basic financial needs. More so the Visa Classic card is for convenience, reliability and worldwide acceptance.

2.17.1.5 Visa Gold Credit Card

Intercontinental Bank Visa Gold Card delivers the recognition, security and preferred service you demand. Our cardholders need not worry about carrying loads of cash and the attendant security risk that comes with it when they travel.

2.18 Intercontinental Verve Card

This card is positioned as a premium, innovative brand set to meet your needs by providing convenience, security, reliability, recognition and reward. It provides strong security based on its EMV chip & PIN complaint status, therefore cannot be cloned. It is a debit card linked to your current card and/or savings etc.

2.18.1 Types of Verve Card

Verve Debit Card: The card works like a cheque with an ATM card ensuring guaranteed security.

Verve Prepaid Card: The reloadable prepaid card that can be purchased instantly. It is safer than cash and always secured.

Verve Gift Card: The gift card is ideal for your gift giving occasion. You can choose the amount and the recipient chooses the gift they really want.

2.18.2 Features of Verve Card

A secure EMV Chip based card, store data on chip with considerable memory size. Can be multipurpose, used for Health, Insurance , I.D card, Government etc as it can store all types of data based on Scheme requirement.

The card is multifunction given the classification as a chip based card. The functionalities can be explored to launch many card schemes which hitherto have been impossible.

Data stored on chip are encoded and encrypted. This does not guarantee absolute security but makes cloning more difficult. In addition to this, it supports the “OTP Strong Authentication” initiatives to help safeguard cardholders’ funds. This measure ensures that the chip is not easily cloned and breach can easily be curtailed.

Has international acceptability and meets the EMV compliance standard for electronic transactions.

The variability in usage creates opportunities to recoup investments in the outlay and impact positively on the bottom line.

Data is generated in an EMV compliant environment.

2.18.3 Benefits of the Card

Reduces risk associated with cash handling

Convenient means of making payment all over Nigeria

Online tracking of transactions

The Card that gives you access to mobile banking, phone top ups, Inter- bank transfers, cash withdrawal on the ATM in Nigeria and Ghana, and payment for goods and services on the web. It’s extremely secured and portable.

2.18.4 Features and Benefits

Gives you access to all the electronic channels like the ATM’s, POS terminals, mobile and the Web.

It can serve as an alternate card to your other cards enabling you to withdraw additional cash per day.

It enables you to make withdrawal in Ghana.

It also enables you to top up your phone, send airtime to friends & loved ones, make Inter-bank funds transfer and bills payment etc

2.19 GT PAY

GTPay is Guaranty Trust Bank’s e-payment solution that enables merchants’ integration to multiple payment gateways in an easy and consistent manner. With this, merchants only need to write their ‘ePortal’ once, integrating with GTPay, and it handles communication with the supported payment gateways – that do the actual financial debit/credit of accounts.

4.0 Theoretical framework

Several theories and models have been developed in different disciplines and used in predicting, explaining, and understanding individuals’ acceptance and adoption of new products or technologies. These models have evolved over the years and came as a result of persistent efforts of models’ validation and extension that took place during the period each was presented. For example, Psychology contributed the Theory of Reasoned Action, TRA (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980), which was extended to the Theory of Planned Behaviour, TPB (Ajzen, 1985) which was also extended to the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour, DTPB (Taylor and Todd, 1995); Information Systems contributed the Technology Acceptance Model, TAM (Davis, 1986), which is an extension of Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA); the TAM was further extended to TAM2 (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, UTAUT (Venkatesh et al., 2003) . This study adopts the UTAUT model in trying to understand the state of e-payments in Nigeria and factors that affect the adoption of e-payment systems in Nigeria.

The UTAUT comprises of all the eight models used to describe technology acceptance behaviour. In the UTAUT model, performance expectancy and effort expectancy were used to incorporate the constructs of perceived usefulness and ease of use in the technology acceptance model (TAM). Perceived ease of use can be expected to be more salient only in the early stages of using a new technology and it can have a positive effect on perceived usefulness of the technology. The UTAUT model attempts to explain how individual differences influence technology use. More specifically, the relationship between perceived usefulness, ease of use, and intention to use can be moderated by age, gender, and experience. For example, the strength between perceived usefulness and intention to use varies with age and gender such that it is more significant for male and younger workers.

The effect of perceived ease of use on intention is also moderated by gender and age such that it is more significant for female and older workers, and those effects decrease with experiences. Four constructs affect behavioural intention. These are: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions. More so the moderators in the model include gender, age, experience and voluntariness of use. In addition each of the moderators has an effect on each of the constructs as seen in the model. Only the constructs performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence have direct effect on the behavioural intention while facilitating conditions is the only construct that has a direct effect on use behaviour.

The UTAUT provides a useful tool for the assessment of the likelihood of success of adoption of a new technology. The research model (based on UTAUT) is presented in Table 1.

INDIVIDUAL CONTEXT

TECHNOLOGICAL CONTEXT

IMPLEMENTATION CONTEXT

Social Influence

Facilitating Conditions

Effort Expectancy

Performance Expectancy

Awareness

Anxiety

Attitude towards technology

Self Efficacy

MODERATING FACTORS

Age

Experience

Gender

Intension to use the e-payment system

E-payment system utilisation

Educational background

Job

Skills

Security

Figure3. 7- Research Model

The model is divided into three contexts which includes; technological contexts, implementation contexts and individual context. They all determine an individual’s intention to use the e-payment system, as seen in the model all three context have direct effect on intention to use e-payment system. The technological context contains performance expectancy and effort expectancy, The Implementation context contains social influence and facilitating conditions while the individual context contains anxiety, awareness, attitude towards the technology and self efficacy. In the technological context performance expectancy defines the degree to which an individual believes that using the e-payment system will help him or her attain the purpose for which the system is designed and as seen in the model, it has a direct effect on an individual’s attitude towards the use of e-payment system. In the model, attitude towards technology defines the user’s level interest in the e-payment system. If an individual does not see the e-payment system as efficient or flexible, then he or she might not be interested in using the system; but if he or she sees the system as efficient or flexible, it would definitely influence the individual’s use of the system.

More so, the infrastructures which are readily available for the use of e-payment system also has a direct effect on the way the e-payment system will perform. This is known as facilitating conditions which is a factor found in the Implementation context of the model. On the other hand Effort expectancy defines the effort which the user is expected to put in, towards the use of the system. Factors in Individual context such as anxiety, awareness and self efficacy affect the effort which a person puts towards the use of the e-payment system. If an individual feel anxious, nervous or is not aware of what e-payment system entails then he or she might not put so much effort towards using the system. In the context (individual) Anxiety defines the degree at which an individual is nervous while using the e-payment system. Self efficacy defines a user’s self confidence in his or her ability to carry out tasks with the e-payment system and Awareness defines the rate at which an individual knows about the e-payment system. Facilitating conditions (which has been defined above) and social influence also has a direct influence on the effort expectancy. In this context social influence defines the degree to which an individual perceives how important others believe he or she should use the e-payment system. If the individual is not motivated by people around him towards the use of the payment system then he might not feel motivated to use the system.

In addition the model contains factors which are known as the moderating factors which include; age, gender and experience. In an extension of experience, the model includes educational background, job and skill for e-payment use. Each of the moderating factors only affects the context which it’s associated with.

Based on the UTAUT model, the following hypotheses were tested:

H1: Self efficacy has a positive impact on an individual’s intention to use and continue using the e-payment system.

H2: High performance of e-payment system increases an individual’s intention to use the e-payment system.

H3a: Effort expectancy is determined by the performance of the e-payment system

H3b: The Educational Background of an individual and the skill which he/she exhibits which is necessary to use the e-payment system determines the effort which he/she will put towards the use of the system.

H4: Social influence determines an individual’s attitude towards accepting the e-payment system.

H5a: Attitude towards the e-payment system has a direct effect on an individual’s behavioural intention to use the system.

H5b: Factors like trust, security and privacy will have a direct effect on an individual attitude towards using the e-payment system.

H6: The extent at which the individual is aware of the e-payment system affects the individual’s adoption of the system.

H7: Anxiety has a direct effect on an individual’s intention to use the e-payment system

H8: Power constraint and the currency dispersed by banks are facilitating conditions that constitute hindrances to the intention of an individual to use e-payment.

H9: The Nigerian economy will eventually become cashless.

METHODOLOGY

5.1 Survey Procedure and Sampling Instrument

The primary source of data for this study was the questionnaire. Using a random purposeful sampling technique, the questionnaire was administered to several individuals with different professions, which include banking, law, teaching, students, engineering, carpentry, medicine, catering, fashion designing, information and communications technology and others. One hundred and fifty questionnaires were distributed, while one hundred and ten copies were properly filled and returned which was used for the analysis.

5.2 Data Analysis

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17 was employed in the analysis of data. Descriptive statistics was utilized in describing the demographics of respondents, while regression analysis was conducted to determine the effects of the identified factors (based on UTAUT) on intention to use e-payment. A further correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between each pair of factor.

6.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

6.1 Demographic Characteristics of respondents

Most of the respondents are within the age bracket of 20 and 30. 52% of the respondents were male while 46% of the respondents were females with 30% of married respondents and 69% of singles. 68% of the respondents made use of verve card, 24% made use of master card, 7% used visa card, 5% made use of Vpay and 6% of the respondents did not make use of any of the cards mentioned in the questionnaire. The research also revealed that 56% of the card users are high adapters i.e. they made use of the payment card often (using the verve ATM card). 23% of the respondents had been using ATM cards for less than a year, 35% had been using theirs for 1-2 years, 40% had been using their payment card for 3-5 years, while only 6% had used ATM cards for over 5years. Respondents were also from diverse professions. 10% were from banking, 3% from lecturing, 23% were students, 14%, carpentry – 5%, medicine – 6%, fashion designing – 5%, information and communications technology – 12%, other – 12%.

42% of the respondents reported that they have never had a problem using an ATM machine. Respondents who had a problem once or twice were 33%, 3-5 times were about 11%, and above 5 times was also 11%. Concerning the issue of fraud, 9% of the respondents were victims for more than 5 times, 10% were victims once or twice and 87% of the respondents have never been victims of Internet fraud.

6.2 Hypotheses Testing

In order to test the study hypotheses, a regression analysis was carried out using intention to use the e-payment system as the dependent variable. The independent variables include; awareness, attitude towards technology, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, anxiety, social influence, self efficacy, security, hindrance and observation. Table 1 shows the model summary

Table 1 Model Summary

Model

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Std. Error of the Estimate

.716a

.513

.464

.37177

The R2 indicates the predictive capability of the model which shows a value of 0.513 and adjusted R2 of 0.464 which indicates a good model fit. The ANOVA test (Table 2 shows an F value of 10.439 (p<<0.5), which is an indication that the predictors significantly affects the dependent variable (intention to use e-payment) as seen below.

Table 2 ANOVA

Model

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Regression

14.427

1.443

10.439

.000a

Residual

13.683

.138

Total

28.110

109

a. Predictors: (Constant), Observation, Security, Effort expectancy, Awareness, Attitude towards technology, Social Influence, Hindrance, Self efficacy, Anxiety, Performance expectancy

b. Dependent Variable: Intention to use e-payment

The collinearity statistics (shown in Table 3) determines the level of correlations among the factors, the results show a good tolerance [>0.2] and Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) [<5] for all the predictors.

Table 3 Coefficients for intention to use e-payment

Model

Unstandardized

Coefficients

Standardized Coefficients

Sig.

Collinearity Statistics

Std. Error

Beta

Tolerance

VIF

(Constant)

1.295

.511

2.533

.013

Awareness

.150

.070

.161

2.150

.034

.872

1.147

Attitude towards technology

.269

.082

.257

3.289

.001

.805

1.243

Performance expectancy

-.032

.082

-.035

-.396

.693

.644

1.552

Effort expectancy

.072

.060

.104

1.203

.232

.662

1.511

Anxiety

.004

.065

.005

.058

.954

.714

1.400

Social Influence

-.042

.051

-.065

-.825

.411

.795

1.259

Self efficacy

.032

.060

.043

.532

.596

.770

1.299

Security

-.006

.041

-.011

-.147

.883

.821

1.218

Facilitating conditions

.378

.042

.708

8.913

.000

.778

1.285

Observation

-.050

.031

-.124

-1.612

.110

.827

1.209

a. Dependent Variable: Intention to use e-payment

The regression coefficients show that the facilitating conditions factor has the highest significant influence (t = 8.913, p = .000) followed by attitude towards the technology (t = 3.289, p = .001) and the Awareness factor (t = 2.150, p = .034). The t-values indicate that awareness, attitude towards technology, and facilitating conditions have statistically significant predictive capabilities, which implies that they exert a significant influence on an individual’s intention to use the e-payment system [|t| â‰¥ 2]. However, self efficacy, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, anxiety, social influence, security and security are not statistically significant. Thus, H5a, H6 and H8 are supported, while H1, H2, H3a, H7, H4, H5, H9 are not supported.

6.3 Correlation Analysis for individual and group factors

The correlations (Table 4) of all factors show the level of association between each factor pair Performance and awareness are correlated at 95% level of significance. If the e-payment system has a high performance then people would be aware of the system, its correlation (performance) with attitudes towards the technology is at 99% which means people would have a good attitude towards using the e-payment system if the system has a high performance and vice versa, It also means that people would like to use the system and would be willing to accept the system. More so, an e-payment system’s performance includes flexibility. If the system is flexible enough for the user then (s)he would not feel nervous using the system. This explains the negative correlation (p< 0.05) between anxiety and performance i.e. a user would only feel intimidated by the system if it is not flexible. Anxiety also has a positive correlation (p< 0.01) with effort expectancy which suggests that if an individual does not feel nervous using the system then it would be easy for him or her to use the system.

Table 4: Factor pair correlations

awareness

Attitude

performance expectancy

Effort expectancy

anxiety

Social influence

Self efficacy

security

Facilitating Conditions

observation

Awareness

Attitude

.179

Performance Expectancy

.211*

.318**

Effort expectancy

.183

.195*

.517**

Anxiety

-.181

.126

-.223*

-.317**

Social Influence

.106

.175

.164

.120

.124

Security

.171

.092

.083

.104

-.030

.273**

.314**

Hindrance

-.125

-.064

-.246**

-.279**

.289**

-.160

-.068

-.169

Observation

.105

.234*

.082

.045

.213*

.173

.110

-.001

.220*

Use Intention

.105

.211*

-.066

-.048

.163

-.121

-.035

-.076

.635**

.105

Facilitating conditions

.155

.021

-.148

-.200*

.294**

-.140

-.078

-.075

.524**

-.022

The correlation between security and social influence is significant at 99% (p< 0.01), which suggests that if the e-payment providers are not trust worthy and people do not feel secured about their privacy while carrying out electronic payment transactions then they would discourage whoever is using the system from using it else they would encourage them or influence them positively towards the use of the system. The correlation between security and self efficacy (p< 0.01) is significant, which suggests that a person would feel confident and would be able to carry out transactions without help if he/she is confident. Facilitating conditions has a negative correlation (p< 0.01) with performance. This indicates that the performance of the e-payment system is affected by poor facilitating conditions. Equally, due to the poor facilitating conditions, users exercise some form of anxiety with the use of e-payment systems. There is also a significant negative correlation (P< 0.01) between facilitating conditions and effort expectancy, which suggests that a person would not put in so much effort towards using the system if he is not sure that there would be power supply and some currency in an ATM machine.

7.0 CONCLUSION

The advent e-payment system in Nigeria has brought a lot of benefits and advantages. But even with this, some citizens still don’t make use of the e-payment system. The regression result indicates that the infrastructures available for e-payment use determines a person’s intention to use the e-payment system, the regression analysis on the actual utilisation shows that intention to use the e-payment system and facilitating conditions have a significant impact on the actual utilisation of e-payment. 53% said they are hindered by power in accessing the internet and if this is not given attention then it will continue to be a hindrance to Nigerians in adoption or intention to use the e-payment system.

More so, identifying the strength, weakness, opportunities and threat associated with the e-payment system, the research shows people are also aware of the benefits of using the e-payment system but it has been recognised that security is one of the weakness of the system, saving time is one of the opportunities that e-payment has created as about 90% of the respondents said they save time using the ATM machine instead of going to the bank. The research also showed that only 50% of the respondents have been trained on how to use the e-payment system.

It is recommended that banks and even the government should try and organise seminars and workshops to train individuals on how to use the e-payment system so as to make them aware of the benefits and even threats associated with the system so they would be aware of the necessary security measures to take. The government should be encouraged to make efforts to develop and expand ICT infrastructure, also raise public awareness on the use of ICT, e-commerce, and e-Payment system in Nigeria. Incentives should be provided for financial institutions to invest rigorously on ICT and use of e-commerce, and e-Payment. The government should systematically expand the necessary infrastructure by promoting the development of necessary technologies, recruiting professional human resources, and expanding the high speed information network because this will foster a strong foundation for e-governance.

This project shows that Nigerians have a good attitude towards using the e-payment system but they can only be reluctant to use it if the hindering factors are not treated and eradicated, the project also shows that in the nearest future the Nigerian economy still has a chance of becoming cash-less.

This project also shows that people are aware of the convenience in using the e-payment system as 90% of the respondents agreed that they actually save time using the e-payment system rather than going to the bank while 92% of the respondents agreed that it is easy for them to use the e-payment system and this also contributes a persons utilisation of the e-payment . This project has also captured that moderating factors affects a person’s intention to use the e-payment system

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