Moderating Role of Perceived Trust and Perceived Service Quality on Consumers’ Use Behavior of Alipay e-wallet System: The Perspectives of Technology Acceptance Model and Theory of Planned Behavior

Abstract

The advancement of e-wallet systems, including Alipay, has led consumers to embrace digital payment with financial technologies. Yet, limited research focused on the usage of e-wallets in the context of emerging economies. This research is aimed at investigating the predictors of consumers’ use behavior of the Alipay e-wallet system in an emerging market and moderating role of perceived trust and perceived service quality on this relationship. The technology acceptance model (TAM) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) were applied as the guiding principle. Data gathered via online surveys among 378 Malaysian Alipay users were analyzed using the partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. The results reveal that all hypotheses were significant towards consumers’ intention to use Alipay in an emerging market except for the moderating role of perceived trust. Perceived usefulness was the strongest predictor factor towards consumers’ intention to use Alipay in an emerging market. This is followed by perceived ease of use. They heavily emphasize the superiorities of Alipay over other e-wallet systems such as efficiency and convenience for conducting financial activities. This study contributes to the existing literature by proposing a comprehensive integrated research model. The research outcome can serve as a guideline for service providers towards enhancing consumers’ adoption of e-wallets for digital payment with financial technologies.