Exploratory study of m-transaction: User's perspectives

Both the recent advances in mobile technologies and the high penetration rate of mobile communication services have had a profound impact on our daily lives, and are beginning to offer interesting and advantageous new services. In particular, the mobile transaction (mtransaction) system has emerged, enabling users to pay for physical and digital goods and services using their mobile devices whenever they want and wherever they are. It is anticipated that M-transaction will enjoy a bright future. However, apparently there is still a lack of acceptance of mobile transaction amongst users. This paper empirically investigates what are the factors that make the mobile subscribers reluctant, and which factors that make them keen to accept m-transaction. This study applies a modified model of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and use of Technology (UTAUT), a robust well-known model, as an approach to collect and analyse the data and, therefore, to develop a categorization of the important factors that play a role in accepting and using M-transaction. Following a qualitative method, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Saudi residents to elicit their opinions and concerns about using m-transaction in Saudi Arabia. The findings of this study show that the factors that have the most significant influence on the acceptance and use of m-transaction in Saudi Arabia are: usability, usefulness, telecommunications infrastructure, security, hacking and fraud, availability, trust, payment gateway, awareness, cost and promotion, privacy, cyber-law, the postal services, government e-readiness, Arabic language support.