Investigating the Dynamic Relationship Between Social Distancing Restrictions and the Adoption of Mobile Money Services in the Middle East: A Panel Data Analysis

This article aims to investigate how social distancing restrictions can be a potential factor to effect on the adoption of mobile money services (MMS) using panel data from seven countries in the Middle East (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Palestinian territories, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) during the period from January to December 2020. Employing panel data analysis, the author uses various measures from the global mobile money dataset GSMA and Google Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Community Mobility Reports. The findings reveal that the social distancing restrictions have begun to play an essential part in the shift to cashless payment due to the epidemic and influence the adoption and use of MMS. The results also suggest that the social distancing restrictions affect consumer adoption of MMS and indirectly affect retailers. Unlike prevailing studies, this study is unique in empirically investigating the association between COVID-19 community mobility and MMS adoption. This study contributes to financial studies on MMS adoption under extreme settings.