Examination of Determinants for E-Wallet Adoption In Malaysia

In the era of innovation in information technology, everything is embedded with technology. There is no exception in the financial sector as well. The term “FinTech” origins with “Financial Services Technology Consortium” in the late 19th century. However, it only attracts the attention of regulators, consumers and investors in 2014. It was initially applied at the back-end systems of financial and banking institutions. However, now Fintech has been shifted to a more consumer-oriented way. Fintech can be explained as the combination of financial services and information technology where it provides financial services for consumers through technology and covers everything from cryptocurrency to mobile wallets application. E-wallet is one of the examples of FinTech in payments and infrastructure that can be freely adopted by everyone. High adoption of E-wallet can lead a country to move towards a cashless society and have a better economic growth and environment. However, the penetration of E-Wallet usage in Malaysia is still on its early stages as compared to other countries. Therefore, this research is to examine the factors that affect the adoption of E-Wallet in Malaysia based on 5 aspects: Perceived Ease of Use (PEU), Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Risk (PR), Social Influence (SI) and Government Support (GS). The research is carried out using questionnaire to a targeted group of 100 respondents of e-wallet user in Malaysia using convenient sampling method. The multiple regression analysis has been carried out to analyse the relationship of each factor towards the adoption of e-wallet among the respondents. The result shows social influence (SI) has a significant relationship with adoption of E-Wallet in Malaysia due to majority of the respondents are at their prime age and their behaviours inclined to be influenced by the reference group. The limitation of this study is the sample of the respondents is limited to the certain areas due to the Covid -19 pandemic even though it has been carried out using the online questionnaire. The results from this study can be used by the SME in Malaysia in digitalised their business through the e-wallet payment in transforming their conventional business to digital business and ultimately spur the overall digital economy in Malaysia.