**2. Adoption of mobile payments: drivers and barriers**

Mobile payment is considered by many experts as one of the "killer" or "star" applications with the greatest potential in the mobile communication sector ([26, 32]; and [55]). In this sense, mobile payment can be defined as any type of individual or business activity involving an electronic device capable of connecting to a mobile network in order to successfully complete an economic transaction [39].



**Table 1.** Barriers to the adoption of mobile payments.

**Barriers to the adoption of mobile payments**

Chellappa and Pavlou

Misra and

Mallat and Tuunainen

James and Versteeg [35] x

Saidi [63] x

Little [43] x

Ramakrishna and Naik

**Users' deficient knowledge of the new technology**

[11] <sup>x</sup> Claessens et al. [13] x

Pousttchi et al. [58] x

Herzberg [31] x

Wickamasinghe [51] <sup>x</sup>

Liu et al. [44] x Agarwal et al. [1] x

Chen [12] x

Islam et al. [34] x Masamila et al. (2010) x Wu et al. (2010) x x

Becher et al. [5] x

Andreev et al. [2] x

Slade et al. [68] x

Teo et al. [71] x x x

Frolick and Chen [21] x Wang and Cheung [74] x Gebauer and Shaw [23] x

116 Smartphones from an Applied Research Perspective

Begonha et al. [6] x x

**No actual, real demand for this kind of payment system**

Siau and Shen [65] x x

[46] <sup>x</sup> <sup>x</sup>

Balan et al. [3] x

Islam et al. [34] x x

Chang [9] x x

[59] <sup>x</sup> <sup>x</sup>

Chang [10] x x

Dewan and Chen [18] x x

**Perceived trust/risk in the new payment system**

**Cost of adopting the payment system**

**Perceived lack of security**

**Technological issues and struggles**

> As previously discussed, mobile payments constitute a recent innovation in its early stages of development and growth [77], yet they are widely extended in our society [28]. This marked presence generates an interest in finding the benefits and drawbacks for users of this new technology. With that purpose, this research reviewed the extant literature assessing different studies on this particular subject. After reviewing the scientific literature in this regard, this study found that the main barriers and deterrents to the adoption of mobile payments are the lack of trust in the new technology and the perceived risk when approaching it (see **Table 1**); 46.43% of users mentioned these factors during the survey process. Other relevant barriers that this study found are the lack of an actual demand for this type of services and the possible technological issues derived from their use (mentioned by 14.29% of respondents). Lastly, other variables such as the cost of adopting the new payment systems (8.93%), the perceived lack of security (also 8.93%), and the scarce knowledge users have regarding this new technologies (7.14%) are also mentioned as factors impacting to a lesser extent the intention to use. On the other hand, the main drivers for the adoption of mobile payments (see **Table 2**) are the convenience, comfort, and familiarity perceived by users when approaching the new technology through their smartphones (mentioned by 18.18% of respondents). Other significant drivers are attributes and characteristics such as ubiquity, personal nature, security, and the high penetration rate (13.64% across all these factors). Finally, this research also found less relevant drivers in variables such as mobility (9.09%) and compatibility (4.55%) [45].


**Table 2.** Drivers for the adoption of mobile payments.
