A CASHLESS SOCIETY: PERCEPTION OF MALAYSIAN CONSUMERS TOWARD THE USAGE OF DEBIT CARDS

Abstract

With the advancement of technology, the acceptance the electronic payment systems among Malaysian consumers has increased from year to year. As technology is rapidly changing, banking institutions in Malaysia are becoming more competitive, expanding their technology, giving more opportunities for their customers to compete with others. Now, the ATM card has been changed to a debit card that can purchase goods and services. The adoption of a debit card as an alternative of payment system has provided a great deal of convenience and security in managing bank savings accounts in terms of a cashless transaction when making any payment. The purpose of this paper is to identify the perception of Malaysian consumers towards the usage of debit cards in their daily transactions. Four (4) determinants related to the perceptions of consumers towards the usage of debit cards were derived from the literature review; security, trust, convenience, and technology readiness. Ten (10) participants were involved in the in-depth interview sessions based on semi-structured interviews. The result of this study showed that convenience was the most influential factor leading to the usage of debit cards among consumers in their daily transactions. The study has several limitations that should be addressed in future research. The main limitation lies in a small sampling size. In the future, a replication of the study could be conducted to cross- validate the results obtained using a bigger sampling frame; such as across Malaysia.