The Effects of System Features, Perceived Risk and Benefit, and Customer Characteristics on Online Bill Paying

Abstract

Along with the exponential increase in online business transactions, the online payment system has gained in popularity because vendors and creditors realize its growing importance as a foundation to improve their information infrastructure and to achieve “paperless” operating efficiency.However, due to per se different characteristics among customers and Web-systems, both sides’ perspectives and technology factors could cause a significant level of variation in customers’ acceptance of online payment methods. Our research involving 148 subjects who participated in a field survey, examined the impact of a series of possible decision factors, including perceived risk, perceived benefits, vendor’s system features, and customers’ characteristics, on the intention to use an online payment system by customers. The results suggest that vendors/creditors should:one, pay particular attention to improving the security and the ease-of-use of their transaction network; and two, focus on adding necessary option features, such as recurring automatic deductions, so that they can speed up the transformation process and encourage customers to switch to using online payment methods.