Overcoming resistance barriers in mobile banking through financial literacy

An overlooked component of innovative service adoption is consumers’ resistance barriers. Mobile banking is no exception, and the present study focuses on several barriers’ (i.e., usage, value, risk, tradition, image, time, privacy and trialability barriers) influence on mobile banking use. This study further investigates the extent to which financial literacy may offset these barriers. Financially literate people have been shown to have better financial decision-making skills and hence might perceive lower resistance barriers. Binary-logit models are estimated to investigate the impact of resistance factors and financial literacy on mobile banking adoption. Findings of an online survey of 405 respondents from Turkey have confirmed usage, time and privacy barriers as significant determinants of adoption while establishing that financial literacy-particularly financial activeness-overcomes the usage barrier. Our results also reveal that higher financial sophistication heightens privacy barriers. Finally, we confirm the lower likelihood of elder users and lower-income groups adopting mobile banking.