Adoption of Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) Application using TAM Framework

Transcription

1 Adoption of Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) Application using TAM Framework Ashutosh Nigam Associate Professor, Vaish College of Engineering Rohtak, Haryana (India) Publishing Date: July 21, 2017 Abstract Technology Adaption Model (TAM) was used as a theoretical framework was used to study the adaption of BHIM mobile applications for cashless payment. Relationship of four construct namely perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude towards using and behavior intension were identified in the proposed model. All variables were measured using past developed scales anchored on a five point likert scale. Data was collected from 275 smart phone users and were analyzed using path modeling method. The findings from the results of the data analyses show that perceived usefulness and information on mobile applications were the main factors influencing acceptance for BHIM application among the mobile phone users resulting in support of TAM model framework. Keywords: BHIM, TAM, Cashless Payment. 1. Introduction The Indian government has implemented a major change in the economic environment by demonetizing the high value currency notes were ceased to be legal tender from the midnight of 8th of November After the demonetization of high currency notes it becomes imperative for Indian government to move towards cashless payment and move thrust towards safe, efficient, interoperable, authorized, accessible, inclusive payment system compliant with international standards through mobile phones for the inclusive growth sustainability of the economy. An exploratory study was conducted among the users of smartphone regarding their adoption towards Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) application for cashless monetary transactions. BHIM is a smart mobile phone based app that allows simple, easy and quick payment transactions using UPI.The application is used to make direct bank to bank payments instantly and collect money using Mobile number or Payment address. It is a unique payment solution which empowers an individual with immediate send and collect request. It uses an like Virtual Payment Address, Mobile Number, account number & IFSC Code number as payment identifier for sending or collecting money instantly. Post demonetizing of high value currency by Indian government created turbulence in the economic environment. The major thrust behind this was to push towards cashless economy to club corruption and stricter corporate governance practices. One major thrust factor in the cashless economy is development of cashless payment mechanisms that is safe, efficient, interoperable, authorized, accessible that should be compliant with international standards. One of the solution to support cashless transaction through unified payment interface through mobile phones for the inclusive cashless growth sustainability of the economy. BHIM is a Mobile App solution developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), based on the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). It was launched on 30 December 2016 by by Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. It has been named after Bhim Rao Ambedkar and is intended to facilitate e-payments directly through banks and as part of the banknote demonetization and drive towards cashless transactions. BHIM runs on the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) platform resulting in instant transactions. To use the BHIM app, the bank account of the user must be linked with the bank account. BHIM support IOS and android platforms making it accessible to majority of the smart phone users. Besides sending and receiving money using Virtual payment address of making it easy to scan QR code and payments making it convenient for the users. There are no charges for making payments through the BHIM app. All payments through UPI go directly to a bank account. BHIM is convenient to users as they don t have to fill out those tedious bank account details again and again 7

2 1.1 Process of BHIM Figure 1: Process of BHIM (Source: BHIM user manual) BHIM allow users to send or receive money to other UPI payment addresses or scanning QR code or account number with IFSC code or MMID (Mobile Money Identifier) Code to users who do not have a UPI-based bank account. Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) is an app that lets simple, easy and quick payment transactions using UPI. It can make instant bank-to-bank payments and Pay and collect money using just Mobile number or Virtual Payment Address. The following are the features of BHIM: 1. Send Money User can send money using a Virtual Payment Address (VPA), Account Number & IFSC, Aadhaar Number or QR code. 2. Request Money User can collect money by entering Virtual Payment Address (VPA). Additionally through BHIM App, one can also transfer money using Mobile No. (Mobile No should be registered with BHIM or *99# and account should be linked) 3. Scan & Pay User can pay by scanning the QR code through Scan & Pay & generate your QR option is also present. 4. Transactions: User can check transaction history and also pending UPI collect requests (if any) and approve or reject. User can also raise complaint for the declined transactions by clicking on Report issue in transactions. 5. Profile: User can view the static QR code and Payment addresses created or also share the QR code through various messenger applications like WhatsApp, etc. 8

3 available on phone and download the QR code. 6. Bank Account: User can see the bank account linked with his/her BHIM App and set/change the UPI PIN. User can also change the bank account linked with BHIM App by clicking Change account provided in Menu and can also check Balance of his/her linked Bank Account by clicking REQUEST BALANCE 7. Language: Up to 8 regional languages (Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Oriya, Gujarati, Kannada, Hindi) available on BHIM to improve user experience. 8. Block User: Block/Spam users who are sending you collect requests from illicit sources. 9. Privacy: Allow a user to disable and enable mobilenumber@upi in the profile if a secondary VPA is created (QR for the disabled VPA is also disabled). After launch of BHIM exponential growth in terms of downloads and the number of live associated and supporting the mobile application shown in table 1 Table 1: Number of banks, volume and amount BHIM App Month No. of Banks live on BHIM Volume Amount (Rs. in Mn) Dec , Jan ,18,672 3, Feb ,37,411 6, Source viewed on March21, 2017 Despite the popularity of UPI interface applications with its popularization of especially after demonization of high currency notes post demonetization very few studies actually exit to the adoption of UPI for cashless transactions. Present study focused to study the customer s perception regarding the adoption of BHIM application. Technology Adaption Model is used as framework to support to study the adoption of the BHIM among its users as it is predictor for perceived usefulness and satisfaction such as responsiveness, customization, security, reliability, and accessibility as the model is well recognized in area of information system. The model is based on the basis of Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behavior and examined variables that motivate individuals to accept a new Information system, and how they do it. While initial acceptance of is an important step toward realizing BHIM success, long-term viability of an BHIM and its eventual success depend on its continued use rather than first-time use. This is so because, given its critical role in today's business processes, infrequent, inappropriate, ineffective long-term use of IS often contributes to corporate failures[6].tpb model to propose a theoretical model to explain customers intention to use BHIM application Although TAM is considered as a wellrecognized model in the field of information systems, little systematic research has been conducted in the usage of mobile applications for cashless transaction context indicating a significant gap in knowledge. Therefore, there is a strong current need to develop and gain empirical support for the TAM for adoption of mobile application for cashless transactions[2] identified that because new technologies such as personal computers are complex and an element of uncertainty exists in the minds of decision makers with respect to the successful adoption of them, people form attitudes and intentions toward trying to learn to use the new technology prior to initiating efforts directed at using mobile application. Attitudes towards usage and intentions to use may be ill-formed or lacking in conviction or else may occur only after preliminary 9

4 strivings to learn to use the technology evolve. Thus, actual usage may not be a direct or immediate consequence of such attitudes and intentions. 2. Objectives of the Study 1. To test the applicability and effectiveness of TAM regarding BHIM mobile application for smart phone users 2. To examine the way ICT knowledge and ICT feature demands as well specialty differences affect the intention of engineering students for BHIM application adaption among the users in every day practice. 3. Theoretical Framework The technology acceptance model (TAM) was first created by Davis (1989), based on the theory of reasoned action (TRA) [2, 3] in psychology research. TAM proposes that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of technology are predictors of user attitude towards using the technology, subsequent behavioral intentions and actual usage. Perceived ease of use was also considered to influence perceived usefulness of technology shown in figure Perceived Ease of Use For the purposes of this study, usefulness is defined as the perception formed by the belief that using a particular system enhances individuals' performance while claiming that this particular innovation is better than its precursors.it is the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort [5].The TAM assumes that people are likely to adopt a new technology to the extent that they believe it would help them to improve performance for cashless transaction. 3.2 Perceived Usefulness The TAM assumes that people are likely to adopt a new technology to the extent that they believe it would help them to improve performance their usefulness.it is the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from effort [4]. It is the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her performance. 3.3 Attitude towards Using Attitude towards using mobile application is important predictor in determining behavior. 3.4 Behavior Intension to Use User behavior intention to use BHIM towards the system in place is the key factors in building technology utilization models. All these theories/models are extended from the basic principles of Theory of Reasoned Action which believes that intention to use the system is the function of attitude towards individual behavior and subjective norms which was later extended to include perceived control. 10

5 Perceived Usefulness H3 H4 H1 Attitude Towards Using H5 Behavior Intension to Use H2 Perceive Ease of Use Figure 2: Hypothesized Relationships in the Proposed Research Model 4. Methodology and Hypothesis Previous research was reviewed to ensure that comprehensive list of measures were included. The factors that are considered in this research that affect the adoption of BHIM mobile applications for cashless transactions were selected from TAM studies The research model has been tested using five hypotheses as shown in Fig 1. These hypotheses are as follows: H1: Perceived ease of use has a significant effect on the perceived usefulness of the BHIM H2: Perceived ease of use has a significant effect on attitude towards using BHIM. H3: Perceived usefulness has a significant effect on attitude towards using BHIM. H4: Perceived usefulness has a significant effect on intention to use BHIM. H5: Attitude towards using has a significant effect on intention to use BHIM A survey was conducted on students of the engineering students and management graduates involved in cashless transaction to evaluate the application of TAM to the BHIM application. Each participant was asked to fill out a single-page questionnaire indicating his or her agreement or disagreement with each statement on a 5-point Likert type scale with the end points being strongly disagree and strongly agree. Scale items appearing on the survey were adapted from scales measuring variables in In order to achieve both goals an extended TAM [2].It is developed and tested, using the path modeling approach as well as data obtained from a random sample of 275 smart phone uses studying at under graduate discipline in different educational institutions in Rohtak. 4.1 Instrument Development The instrument was pilot tested by a similar group of students. The students were asked to volunteer to participate. 29 students completed the pilot questionnaire. Based on their feedback, some questions were reworded and/or deleted. Cronbach s alpha and factor analysis were used to analyze the data from the pilot study resulting in eliminating questions that were similar or did not measure the construct. The scales used to measure perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, intention to use, 11

6 and actual use, were adapted from [2], which established their reliability and validity. 4.2 Internal Consistency Internal consistency was measured by applying the Cronbach s alpha test to the individual scales. The overall measures are reported in Table 2. As all of the items had an alpha above the standard guideline of 0.70, the scales can be used for analysis with acceptable reliability [4]. Measure of sampling adequacy is within the specify range shown in table 3. Table 2: Scale Reliability: Descriptive Statistics and Cronbach s Alpha Construct Scale Items Mean SD Cronbach s Perceived usefulness (PU) Alpha PU PU PU PU Perceived ease of use (PEU) PEU PEU PEU PE Attitude towards Using ATU ATU ATU ATU ATU Behaviour Intention to use (IU) IU IU IU Source: Field Data 4.3 Construct Validity Factor analysis with Varimax rotation was performed to ascertain that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, intention to use, actual use, and task technology fit are distinct constructs. The results confirmed the existence of four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 that accounted for 70.28% of the total variance. To examine construct validity of measures adopted in this study, a factor analysis was performed. Principal factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted to assess the underlying structure for the fifth teen items of the TAM questionnaire. Four factors were requested, based on the fact that the items were designed to index four constructs: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude toward using and intention to use. After rotation, the first factor accounted for 27.22% of the variance, the second 12

7 factor accounted for 18.54%, the third factor accounted for 13.47%, and the fourth factor accounted for 11.05%. Table displays the items and factor loadings for the rotated factors, with loadings less than 0.50 omitted to improve clarity shown in table 4. Table 3: Results of KMO and Bartlett s Test Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy..913* Bartlett s Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi -Square Df 120 Sig. 000 Table 4: Factor Loadings Scale Items PU PU PU PU PEU PEU PEU PEU ATU ATU ATU ATU IU IU IU % of variance explained Cumulative percentages No significant correlation was found between participants age and gender and the two dependent variables namely, attitude and intention to use. These demographic variables were dropped from further analysis. Separate linear regression analyses were conducted based on 275 completed surveys collected from the study. In testing Hypothesis 1 (H1), a regression analysis was performed, with perceived ease of use as an independent variable and perceived usefulness as the dependent variable. Table 5 presents the regression results used to test H1. 13

8 Table 5 β Standard Error of β t P R2 Perceived ease of use < As indicated in Table 3, perceived ease of use had a significant influence on perceived usefulness (β =.648; p < 0.001). Thus, Hypothesis 1 (H1) was supported Hypothesis 2 (H2) and Hypothesis 3 (H3) were tested by regressing both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on attitude towards using the BHIM application. Table 5 provided results from the regression analysis for both H2 and H3 Table 6 β Standard Error of β t p R2 Perceived ease of use < Perceived usefulness <.001 As shown in Table 6, both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness have a significant influence on attitude toward using. Accordingly, H2 and H3 are both supported. Hypothesis 4 (H4) and Hypothesis 5 (H5) were tested through a third regression model, with perceived usefulness and attitude regressing upon intention to use. To control for the indirect influence of perceived usefulness on intention to use through attitude, a stepwise regression was performed in which perceived usefulness was entered in step one and attitude toward using was entered in step two. Results for H4 and H5 are presented in Table 7. Table 7 β Standard Error of β t p R2 Perceived usefulness < Attitude toward using >.05 Consistent with prior research [2, 3], perceived usefulness had a significant effect on intention to use, with p < The effect of perceived usefulness and attitude toward using explains 39.9% of the variance of usage intentions by students. While perceived usefulness had a significant effect on intention to use, attitude toward using did not. Thus, Hypothesis 4 (H4) was supported, but Hypothesis 5 (H5) was not supported. 14

9 Table 8: Summarizes the results of the hypotheses testing, and Figure 2 shows these results Hypothesis Relationship tested Results H1 Perceived ease of use has a significant effect on the perceived usefulness of the BHIM Supported (p <0.05) H2 Perceived ease of use has a significant effect on attitude towards using BHIM. Supported (p <0.05) H3 Perceived usefulness has a significant effect on attitude towards using BHIM. Supported (p <0.05) H4 Perceived usefulness has a significant effect on intention to use BHIM. Supported (p <0.05) H5 Attitude towards using has a significant effect on intention to use BHIM Supported (p <0.05) 5. Summary of Hypothesis Testing This study examined TAM using student acceptance of BHIM application for cashless transactions. Overall, TAM was fully supported. Based on data collected from 275 students, the utility of TAM for explaining acceptance of BHIM was evaluated. Results in table 8 shows that perceived usefulness is more important in determining intention to use than attitude toward using. In agreement with TAM postulates, perceived usefulness was found to have a significant influence on students intention to use the technology, that is, it is in accordance with Davis [2] who found attitude toward using was at best a predictor of the effect of perceived usefulness on intention to use, and that it added little causal explanatory power. An explanation might be that students are willing to adopt beneficial applications of BHIM, and this may suggest that students tend to focus on the usefulness of the technology itself [6]. In this context, providing proper user training is essential for directing and solidifying students perception of the usefulness of the technology. Furthermore, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were also found to have a significant effect on attitude towards using the technology. Contrary to what TAM hypothesizes, attitude was found to have no effect on intention to use. TAM appears to lack adequate specificity to explain and enunciate attitude and intention of students. 6. Conclusion and Recommendations From a managerial standpoint, the findings of this study reveal that, in order to foster individual intention to use a technology, positive perception of the technology s usefulness is crucial, whereas the students attitude toward using the technology may not be equally important. Training and information sessions on BHIM by NPCI and awareness to masses need to focus primarily on how the technology can help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of people for making e-payment learning process rather than on the procedures of actual use of the technology. In conclusion, TAM is not a descriptive model, that is, it does not provide diagnostic capability for specific flaws in technology, it can serve the purpose of evaluating and predicting technology acceptability there is requirement for trust factor needs to be developed as no security solution developed can be perfect. The study analysis indicates two recommendations. First, to expand the theoretical validity of the literature, reexamination of TAM with another student or user population and different information technology (IT) application will be important to generalize the results [1, 2]. Davis suggested additional factors to be included in the original TAM such as prior usage, user experiences, and user characteristics. Accordingly, future studies should investigate the role of adding such variables to those originally used in the model. 15

10 References [1] Ajzen, I. "The Theory of Planned Behavior," Organizational behavior and Human Decision Processes (50), 1991, pp [2] Davis, F.D., Bagozzi, R.P., & Warshaw, P.R. (1989). User acceptance of computer technology: a comparison of two theoretical models. Management Science, 35(8), [3] Fishbein, M. & Ajzen, I. (1975), Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: an introduction to theory and research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley [4] Klopping, I. M., & Mckinney, E. (2004). Extending the Technology Acceptance Model and the Task-Technology Fit Model To Consumer E-Commerce. Information Technology, Learning, and Performance Journal, 22(1), [5] Turan, A., Tunç, A. Ö., & Zehir, C. (2015). ScienceDirect A Theoretical Model Proposal: Personal Innovativeness and User Involvement as Antecedents of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. Procedia -Social and Behavioral Sciences, 210, [6] Lyytinen, K., and Hirschheim, R. "Information Systems Failures: A Survey and Classification of the Empirical Literature, "Oxford Surveys in Information Technology (4), 1987, pp

11 Measurement items used in the study: Appendix Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) EASE1: I found BHIM easy to use. EASE2: Learning to use BHIM would be easy for me. EASE3: My interaction with BHIM was clear and understandable. EASE4: It would be easy for me to find information at BHIM Perceived Usefulness (PU) USE 1: Using BHIM would enhance my effectiveness in learning. USE 2: Using BHIM would improve my performance in managing payments. USE 3: Using BHIM would increase my productivity in my making payments. USE 4: I found BHIM useful. Attitude toward Using (ATTITUDE) ATT1: I dislike the idea of using BHIM ATT2: I have a generally favorable attitude toward using BHIM. ATT3: I believe it is (would be) a good idea to use this BHIM for my daily routine transactions regarding payment and receipt. ATT4: Using BHIM is a foolish idea. (R) Note: R = reversed item Intention to Use (ITU) INT1: I intend to use BHIM during the bill and other payments. INT2: I will return to BHIM often. INT3: I intent to visit BHIM frequently for checking balance 17