The Influence of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic on the Use of Digital Payment in Malaysia

Abstract

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic has brought historic disruption to the economy, social, and health sectors around the globe. The closure and shut down of some businesses have caused consumption in many industries to decline. The trends that stem from the crisis have also affected the way people transfer money and execute payments for numerous purposes. Digital payments also have become a crucial solution for people as well as many businesses for financial transactions and stimulate their business into this new normal. This paper aims to identify the method of payment before and during the lockdown period and investigate the potential influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of digital payments by applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). This paper employed questionnaire-based surveys and a simple random sampling method. A total of 400 respondents were administered and analyzed by deploying descriptive analysis, Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskal Wallis Test, and multiple regression analysis. The findings reveal that age, education level, ease of use, social influence, and trust have a positive and significant influence on the use of digital payment. Trust depicts the strongest influence on the use of digital payment. The result may provide insight for practitioners and researchers while assisting the digital payment service providers, government, and financial institutions to have a better understanding and concern of the practicality in the use of digital payment for various financial transactions. Keywords: Covid-19; Digital Payments; Mobile Payments; Mobile Banking; E-Wallet.