Effect of COVID-19 health threat on consumer's perceived value towards mobile payments in India: a means-end model

Shifting to mobile payments from offline payments can be considered as a social distancing measure in times of a pandemic. The COVID-19 outbreak is currently entering its 'endemic' stage; continued usage of mobile-based payment services is thereby warranted as a social distancing mechanism. This could be true in case of any other pandemic/endemic outbreaks like SARS/Nipah virus outbreaks. The current study examines how the 'perceived' health threat posed by COVID-19 and mobile payment service quality (MPSQ) influence consumers' perceived value toward continuous usage of mobile payment services (MPS) in India. In addition, the investigation considers other factors that prompt consumers to continue using the service. Customers, who used mobile payment applications for making cashless transactions during the pandemic, formed the subjects of the study. Data were collected from 720 mobile payment users. The research model integrates the concept of health threat in health belief model to means-end chain model to explain why a customer opts to choose m-payment at times of a pandemic, and what prompts him/her to continue with its usage. The model was empirically tested with structural equation modeling, along with mediation and moderation analysis. It was found that MPSQ, perceived susceptibility, and perceived severity of COVID-19 significantly enhanced consumers' value perceptions regarding MPS, which leads to satisfaction and continuance intention of using the same. In addition, the study also found a significant positive moderating role of consumer involvement on the relationship between perceived health threat, perceived value, and MPSQ. The threat of COVID-19, being an endemic, or occurrence of similar pandemics persists, and adopting contactless transactions via MPS to comply with social distancing norms may improve customer value perceptions that could aid in the persistence of MPS usage. Also, derivation of value perceptions out of the service quality acts as a driver to continuous usage.