Adoption of digital payments at the merchant level: a structured literature review

Abstract

The adoption of digital payments remains below expectations globally, and we do not fully understand why that is the case. Extensive research has been done at the consumer level, but little focus has been given to other stakeholders in the payment ecosystem, including merchants. Digital payments adoption research at the merchant level is emerging; however, it is fragmented across multiple disciplines and lacks a common understanding of the factors that enable or hinder adoption, contributing to a lack of a holistic understanding of digital payments adoption and the continued low adoption globally. This structured literature review is conducted across five disciplines and includes 59 research articles consolidating the literature on digital payments adoption at the merchant level in the payment ecosystem. Using inductive thematic analysis, the literature review identified enabling and hindering factors under the themes of structural factors, experiential factors, adoption theory factors, socioeconomic factors and the merchant and consumer interplay. The theory, context and methodology (TCM) approach is applied to the thematic analysis process to ensure a comprehensive and structured approach in the multidisciplinary research. Future research domains are identified for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners on structural factors, merchant-level research in Africa, and the interplay between merchants and consumers in the payment ecosystem.