The adoption of NFC-based mobile payment services: An empirical analysis of Apple pay in China

With the growing trend of mobile services prevailing in every sphere of our daily life, near field communication (NFC) is at the forefront of transforming the existing payment experience through providing a unified, secure transaction channel which can serve as an alternative to smart cards. Taking the opportunity offered by the recent launch of Apple Pay in China, this research aims to investigate the determinants of the behavioural intention to adopt NFC-enabled mobile payment services. The proposed model extends the technology acceptance model (TAM) with consumer trust, service quality dimensions and prior experience of users. The model is tested using survey collected from 166 iPhone users in China. Perceived usefulness and trust are identified as significant drivers of behavioural intention to use Apple Pay. Among all the service quality dimensions, reliability is identified the most important factor affecting behavioural intention through perceived usefulness, which reflects consumers' emphasis for stable, error-free transaction experience. Structural assurances, calculative-based trust and confidentiality are also shown to have indirect positive influence on behavioural intention through paths on trust. Finally, the mediation effects of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are analysed.