Determinants of Mobile Payment Adoption by Merchants in Ethiopia

Abstract

Nowadays the world witnessed a rapid growth in mobile commerce and the widespread use of mobile devices. The growth of mobile commerce depends on widely accepted mobile payment systems. However, this trend is not well experienced in developing countries like Ethiopia. Even though merchants somehow benefited from the rapid growth in electronic commerce and the use of mobile devices in e-commerce, they still hesitate to effectively employ in their day-to-day transactions. Little research has been conducted to examine and explain the merchants' views on the new payment technology. In this paper, we explore the factors that affect merchants’ adoption of mobile payment in Ethiopia. The result suggests that relative advantage, ease of use, usefulness, attitude, trust, risk/security, and cost are factors that affect mobile payment adoption positively and significantly. Whereas compatibility is found not significant for merchants’ adoption of mobile payment systems in the Ethiopian context. Based on the findings, the study proposes a conceptual model for mobile payment adoption to guide practice and future research in this emerging area.