Abstract

This is a work-in-progress research paper on Mobile Banking (mBanking) in the USA that draws upon mBanking deployment successes in low-income countries. The research investigates mBanking adoption at a large (over 24,000 students) university in the southeast United States, with plans to collect data from low-income countries (Ghana, Kenya, and Ethiopia). The completed study will compare the results from the USA to those in low-income countries with a view to developing a theoretical framework that compares US adoption patterns to those in low-income countries. The paper has three objectives: identification of the core mBanking features evidenced in the dominant mBanking solutions within low-income countries, identification of a theoretical framework for mBanking use, and an empirical study to understand the adoption of mBanking in the US as contrasted to its adoption in the low-income countries. We borrow from Internet banking studies and adapt a theoretical framework for mBanking use. We conduct surveys and interviews to empirically test our theoretical model. We identify common mBanking features from solution providers in low-income countries and apply it to our target population in the US. In January 2011 the United States’ Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), as a major part of its economic inclusion campaign to reach out to the unbanked and under-banked communities, sponsored nine banks to launch economic inclusion program for the seventeen million unbanked and forty-three million under-banked residents in the United States (Corporation 2011). Students are part of these sixty million people that make up the unbanked and under-banked US residents. Students aren’t building the credit history needed to get loans and often are unable to take advantage of the less costly forms of financial products. There are similarities between low-income countries and the unbanked and under-banked communities in the US. Hence, this study looks at common mBanking features in low - income countries and tests to see their likely adoption in the US.

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