A DEMATEL-based Investigation of Safety Factors influencing Mobile Payment Habit Formation

Mobile payments have gained popularity across the world. However, there is a persistent threat of security and privacy for the users of mobile payments. This leads to reduced usage and negatively affects habit. Mobile payment literature studies factors like risk, security, and trust, to unravel the threats associated with its usage. Yet, there is a limitation of studies understanding the interrelationships between such factors. In this paper, we examine how these safety factors interact with each other and affect the habit formation. We investigate the cause-effect relationship, through conceptual causal mapping, through the DEMATEL (the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory) method. This methodology allows us to investigate the alterations in strengths in relationships. Using the findings from a survey with a mix of experts and users of mobile payments, we investigate how the safety factors, like security, financial risk, privacy risk, and trust, impact each other and act as a cause or an effect, resulting in influencing habit formation. The results show that both trust and habit evolve as effects of the other causal factors. We contribute to the prior mobile payment literature, that has predominantly considered these factors as independent variables, through our examination of their interrelationships.