The role of cognitive
resources in the use of mobile
financial services
Rebecca I. Kiconco, Gerrit Rooks(PhD),
& Uwe Matzat (PhD)
Content
• Preamble and context of Mobile Financial Services
• Previous studies and Purpose of the study
• Methodology
• Findings
• Design of user interface
Mobile money context
Introduction
• Mobile money is a platform that initially was used in the financial
inclusion domain and has been extended across health care,
agriculture, commerce (Donovan, 2012)
• This technology lowers the costs and risks associated with financial
transactions, generates employment and provides a platform on which
other entrepreneurial businesses can grow.
• Studies on mobile money adoption have focused on intentions to
adopt.
Factors to which variations are attributed
Study
Current Technology acceptance Model
• In low literacy populations, perceptions to the usefulness of certain
technologies have been positive but have not translated into use
(Donovan, 2012).
• We suspect competencies in this case mobile phone skills can explain
this.
Theoretical framework
• Actual use Vs Intention
• Skills Vs Perceptions
• Variations in Use
Perceived Ease of
Use
Mobile money
Adoption/Variety
of Use
Mobile phone
Skills
Perceived
Usefulness
Methods
• 250 households were selected however usable responses stand at 208.
• Mobile phone skills, mobile money use and variety of use have never
been tested before.
• We developed these scales.
• Mobile money adoption. (Whether one uses mobile money – YES/NO)
• We choose to test actual skills versus self-assessment Likert scales
Sample Items from the mobile phone skills test
Which of the following definitions explains better what a PUK code is? *
Same as a PIN code
The code you use
The code you use if a
The code used to get
before the PIN code
PIN code fails
money from the bank
I don't know
Mokken Scale Analysis Results
• Used Mokken scaling analysis to find a hierarchy of mobile money usage
Variable
Mean
Order of
difficulty
Mobile phone
Skill level
Sim Pincode
PUK Code
Bluetooth
Hash symbol
Space Button
Voicemail icon
Power Source
Simcard Pic
ITunes store/google play
.485
.159
.724
.937
.826
.091
.816
.961
.140
6
9
5
2
3
11
4
1
10
Sim card Pic
Hash symbol
Space Button
Power Source
Bluetooth
Sim Pin code
Send Picture from Phone
Connection MPtoPC
PUK Code
Connection MPtoPC
.193
8
ITunes store/google play
3G Technology
Send Picture from Phone
.024
.449
12
7
Voicemail icon
3G Technology
Lowest skills
Medium
Highest skills
Mokken Analysis for Variety of Use
Proportion
Level of Use
Respondents
pursuing activity
Receive Money
91%
Send Money
87%
Deposit Money
85%
Buy Airtime
73%
Pay Bills
29%
Pay Goods
20%
Bank Transfers
6%
More common
Moderate
Least used
Results
Perceived ease of Use
Mobile Phone Skills
Significant
Perceived Usefulness
• Income and Literacy were significant predictors
Mobile Money
Use/Variety of Use
Discussion
• Motivation and perceptions to use mobile money has no bearing on
whether an individual adopts or uses it.
• Skills are an important precipitant of using mobile money use
• Current Mobile Money interface is long, in text and English language
based
• Recent survey in the rural area revealed variety of use is low, attributed
to abilities to operate a mobile phone.
Going forward – Experiments with new design of user
interface
Conclusion
The END!
Thank you.