Prospects and Challenges of Mobile Financial Services (MFS) in Bangladesh

Microelectronic payment systems are speedily replacing the ordinary modes of payment. Electronic payment systems require online financial transactions that utilize some digital financial devices. They have allowed government, businesses, and financial institutions to propose a multiple of payment opportunities to their customers. These payment opportunities include charge account credit, master card, mobile banking, and automatic teller machine and payments bills through the mobile. Mobile financial services (MFS) performed a crucial role within the present online business and other business and financial services performed within the busy and pandemic world. The study is empirical in nature of MFS and its implications in Bangladesh. Finally, the study presents an overview of challenges and prospects of MFS in Bangladesh, focusing on some development strategies for policy holders. Researchers propose how MFS operators solve the MFS-related problems, overcome the challenges, satisfy the customers, and increase their service.

Empowering Small Businesses with Financial Technology: The Road Less Travelled

Financial services remain untapped by most of the small business owners in Bangladesh. This limited access to mobile financial services and FinTech presents a business opportunity for the FinTech startups in the market. TallyKhata and Upayare digital financial services platforms visualizing to capture the untapped sector by becoming one of the first movers in the industry. This article has studied the cases of TallyKhata and Upay in empowering small businesses in Bangladesh through the services that have made business transactions and credit management hassle-free.

Demographics as Moderator Between Perceived Easy of Use, Individual Awareness and Adoption of Mobile Financial Services

The number of mobile financial services users is keeping increasing in Tanzania. Despite such an increase, few individuals actively use mobile financial services. The adoption of these services may be contributed by either the different features of mobile financial services or demographics orientation. The current study used Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and AMOS-SEM for data analysis. The findings revealed that the antecedents of mobile financial services, namely individual awareness and perceived ease of use significantly influence individual mobile financial services adoption. Demographics orientation was also found to have moderating effect on the relationship between individual awareness and perceived ease of use, and individual mobile financial services adoption. The paper makes a contribution in the theory used and contributes knowledge to the Tanzania national second financial inclusion policy 2018-2022 by considering demographics variables in analyzing different issues.

Mobile investment technology adoption among investors

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine investors' internal characteristics, including investment literacy, risk tolerance and familiarity with mobile financial services, as antecedents of mobile investment technology adoption among American investors.Design/methodology/approachUsing the 2018 National Financial Capability Study and its supplemental Investor Survey, this study examined antecedents, including investors' internal characteristics, in relation to mobile investment technology adoption. Nested logistic regression analyses were performed for adopting mobile apps for investment decisions and for investment trading.FindingsThis study found that objective and subjective investment knowledge, experience using mobile banking for payments and money transfers, and certain ownerships of investment vehicles (such as whole-life insurance policies and ETFs) were significant determinants of mobile investment decision-making. On the other hand, subjective investment literacy, risk tolerance, familiarity with mobile financial services, and portfolio value, as well as certain types of investment vehicles were significantly associated with mobile investment trading.Originality/valueThis study is among the first to examine investors' investment literacy, risk tolerance and familiarity with mobile financial services as investors' internal characteristics in relation to mobile investment technology adoption. The diffusion of innovations theory and related concepts provide theoretical support for this study. The findings provide new insights into mobile investing as an emerging FinTech subject and provide implications for practitioners and FinTech developers, as well as contribute to the literature of mobile investment service adoption among retail investors.

An Examination of the Catalyst for Tapping into Mobile Financial Services in the Post-COVID-19 World

Amid the widespread impact of COVID-19, mobile financial services (MFS) have experienced extensive requests due to the failure to perform physical installments and the need for secure transactions. This trend cannot end the utility of cash but it may promote portable monetary administration toward a cashless world. MFS is anticipated to have a bright future as m-commerce increasingly becomes widely known. This study proposes the choice of making a trial and assessment research facility by using a fuzzy model as the most expository device. General forms of a triangular fuzzy number are subjective categories for a linguistic variable. Linguistic variables take on values defined in their term set, that is, the set of linguistic terms. The essential components, including personal innovativeness, transaction completeness, user-friendliness, anonymity, and privacy, are causal competitive advantages of the mobile payment system framework and may play a critical part in reacting to MFS. This study shows that transaction completeness, innovative interface design, privacy, and security facilitate MFS adoption. Furthermore, reliability is necessary to enhance trust in the MFS technology. This study draws on the outcomes of administrative suggestions and recommends a few observational strategies to improve the monetary administration in the MFS industry.

Users' attitude and intention to use mobile financial services in Bangladesh: an empirical study

PurposeWhile the usage of mobile financial services (MFSs) is increasing rapidly in developing countries, research on users' attitudes and behavioral intention to adopt MFS is limited. Thus, this study aims to investigate customers' attitudes and intentions to adopt MFS from a Bangladeshi perspective.Design/methodology/approachA mixed research design was employed to conduct this study. Data of 196 respondents were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) path modeling. For the quantitative part, data collection was conducted using non-probability sampling through a structured survey questionnaire. A focus group discussion with ten MFS users from divergent backgrounds was conducted to validate the quantitative findings.FindingsThis paper integrated both the technology acceptance model (TAM) and innovation resistance theory (IRT) to validate the results. The authors found that perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived trust (PT) positively contribute to customers' attitudes toward MFS adoption. Besides, barriers to acceptance had unfavorable effects on users' attitudes and usage intentions. Furthermore, a focus group discussion revealed valuable insights on the constructs used in this study.Practical implicationsThe study results have implications for both MFS providers and researchers. The outputs and recommendations presented in this paper will encourage the MFS practitioners to stimulate users' attitudes and behavioral intentions by ensuring useful, easy to use, credible and risk-free mobile payment platforms.Originality/valueThis is one of the very few studies in Bangladesh that have taken a contemporary and emerging research topic, providing theoretical, methodological and practical contributions regarding the determinants and consequences of attitude toward using MFSs.

Users’ Experiences of Mobile Financial Services at Rural Areas of Bangladesh

Mobile Financial Services (MFS) is one of the new innovations of the modern financial system. It nowadays plays a crucial role in banking users’ day-to-day financial activities. This study investigates users’ experiences of MFS at rural areas of Bangladesh. Specifically, this study sought to gain an understanding of to what extent different factors positively or negatively influence users’ experience in using mobile financial services. This study was mainly a survey research. The data were obtained using a questionnaire from a total of 128 MFS users (102 male and 26 female) living in rural areas of Bangladesh who were conveniently chosen from five Upazilla in Barishal city. The findings suggested that MFS users in rural areas of Bangladesh have both positive and negative experiences toward the use of mobile financial services. This study further revealed six major factors that have influenced the users’ positive and negative experiences in general, i.e. perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, trust, customer and MFS agent relationship, and perceived cost. It was found that the last factor (perceived cost) have generated the users’ negative experiences toward mobile financial services. Therefore, the government and MFS providers are encouraged to work together with some innovative strategies to change the users’ negative experiences into positive experiences of using the mobile financial services.