Mobile Financial Services Adoption In Togo:A Measurement Modeling And Decision Analysis

The quick proliferation of mobile technology combined with the advent of internet network has a far-reaching impact on the entire world.The more people are getting access to mobile phone devices,the more their desire to be online also increases using their phone.These phenomena observed have stimulated both banks and mobile network service providers in developing countries,precisely in Togo to launch Mobile Financial Services?MFS?nearly four?4?years ago.MFS that comprise mobile banking,mobile payment and mobile money transfer is an emerging application of mobile commerce that could prompt an extra revenue source for both banks and telecom service providers.It is a kind of service convergence supported by innovative technologies.Despite the purported benefits of MFS,its adoption has limitations in industry expectations.The users'acceptance of these services is low and still not promising as compared to the patronage of traditional forms of payments in Togo.Consumer's sociocultural influence,online trust,and perceived risk have been acknowledged as major influential factors that affect the success of mobile finance systems.Furthermore,some earlier studies towards online services slow adoption have underlined the lack of adequate management tool amongst companies'providers and suitable strategies that could sustain the current users regarding their needs and wants.The majority of the financial companies in Togo lean on the management measures in appraising companies'performance while this scale differs from the understanding of theories and concepts backing MFS technology adoption.Many studies have also reconnoitered and proposed theories and models of technology adoption to predict user usage intention and adoption,to clarify the incremental revolution in technologies along with their environments.Each and every theory or model was recommended along with a number of determinants and commonly engendered in the developed countries.Nevertheless,the developing countries appear to be omitted from the literature.Motivated by these indications,this research has four objectives.Firstly,to inspect whether sociocultural,initial trust and perceived risk with their various antecedents significantly impact customer's behavioral intention to adopt MFS.Secondly,to build a complete theoretical model explaining MFS adoption in developing countries.Thirdly,to develop a benchmark framework as to provide a robust theoretical basis to support MFS strategic decision making.Lastly,to clarify which factors are more influential in affecting the MFS usage decision while ranking the various alternatives of MFS.For these ends,the literature regarding critical aspects of technology acceptance was thoroughly reviewed to generate factors of MFS adoption,resulting in a comprehensive model consisting predominantly of sociocultural influence,initial trust,and perceived risk.A mixed methodology was suggested whereby a theoretical model was confirmed employing Structural Equation Modeling?SEM?.The SEM output engendered were applied as inputs to Analytic Hierarchy Process?AHP?which in turn provided weight designed for Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution?TOPSIS?to the MFS perspective analysis.A survey questionnaire technique was employed to collect the primary data from the populace of LoméTogo in particular,the most favorable place for the research where the sample can be a representative.An SEM questionnaire was distributed to 714 respondents,572?80.11%?of the questionnaire were received.Amongst the received survey questionnaire,539?94.23%?yielded usable questionnaire which is made of both users and non-users.A Multiple Criteria Decision Making?MCDM?approach involving both AHP and TOPSIS survey was adopted respectively by producing useful answers of 116 and 157 based on the consistency rule regarding measurement requirement via experts and MFS experienced users.The collected data are analyzed with various supportive tools such as Census and Survey Processing System?CSPro?,Statistical Package for the Social Science?SPSS?,Analysis of a MOment Structures?AMOS?,Smart Partial Least Square?SmartPLS?,BPMSG's-AHP,and MATrix LABoratory?MATLAB?.Given the objective of this investigation,the initially proposed research model was split into twofold:The Group A Model,a combination of SEM-MCDM methodology and the Group B Model,using SEM methodology.The findings obtained from SEM using Covariance-Based SEM?CB-SEM?showed that factors such as sociocultural,initial trust,perceived risk together with perceived ease-of-use,perceived usefulness,and perceived cost have either influenced usage intention or MFS adoption.The first three pre-cited factors have revealed specific dependent relationships with their corresponding sub-factors as well.Results from MCDM have exposed pivotal ranking as follows:The risk perceived was known to be the ultimate essential criteria?factor?ahead of sociocultural and initial trust respectively which evidence must be controlled when adopting MFS in Togo.Amongst the sub-criteria?sub-factor?,perceived privacy risk was the highest leading element followed by the perceived time risk and facilitating condition correspondingly.Regarding the alternative selection of MFS,the decision makers considered mobile money transfer as the paramount of importance(1^st rank)followed by mobile payment(2^nd)while choosing mobile banking(3^rd)remains trifling.A conceptual model known as Mobile Financial Services Model for Developing Countries?MFSMDC?was generated.The results of the study were compared to other works.It is understood that MFS companies could,by the application of data concerning other emerging cities,apply the developed model to recommend appropriate solutions.A structured benchmark approach SEM-AHP-TOPSIS was developed and deemed necessary to diminish the time period and effort in the decision-making.Its uniqueness lies in its ability to handle interdependency among the evaluation methods and to consider both qualitative and quantitative assessments on the measures concurrently.Whenever new criteria and/or alternatives ascend to satisfy changing business requests,they can also be incorporated into the hierarchical model.Furthermore,the findings disclosed the advantages and the challenges of CB-SEM and provided a comparison with PLS-SEM employing the same data set.Although the outcomes obtained from both methods shown similarity about the structural path analysis,there are many benefits in using PLS-SEM.Equally,once the finding of SEM-MCDM mainly SEM and AHP were compared,the result revealed that the two techniques resulted in a very similar evaluations.Hence,the advantage of using both methods rely on their complementary role in the decision-making.The results aid to enlighten on the role of different factors in the MFS users'intention and adoption among customers.A managerial implication imports that MFS providers should cultivate more strategies to improve consumers'initial trust while mitigating perceived risk using the stimulating privacy protection tool and patronize MFS espousal to attract ever-larger consumer base.This research further provides a new innovative approach to grasp MFS adoption perspective and expand the knowledge of consumer behavior regarding online mobile finance technological novelties.