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Predicting elderly users’ intention Elderly users’

intention of
of digital payments during digital
payments
COVID-19: an extension
of the theory of planned
behavior model Received 29 December 2022
Revised 24 March 2023
Accepted 18 April 2023
Jiaji Zhu
School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu,
China;
Service Science and Innovation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province,
Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China and
Yibin Research Institute, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China
Xin Li
School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University,
Chengdu, China
Yushi Jiang
School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu,
China and
Yibin Research Institute, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China, and
Wenju Ma
Yibin Research Institute, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China

Abstract
Purpose – Promoting the adoption of digital payments by the elderly plays an important role in the
development of the digital economy. The purpose of this study is to build an extended theory of planned
behavior (TPB) model to predict the elderly’s intention to pay for digital services under COVID-19 epidemic
constraints.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on the extended TPB model, 320 qualified participants were
recruited on the network. The structural equation model was tested using the SmartPLS3.3 tool, and the
moderation effects were tested through SPSS26 and the Process macro.
Findings – The results showed that the three dimensions of TPB theory, the basic elements (perceived
value and perceived risk), and the external environment (COVID-19 pandemic) were important factors that
influence the elderly users’ intention to adopt digital payments. Further research found that motivation
factors (personal innovativeness, intergenerational support, and social support) can positively moderate
these effects.
Research limitations/implications – The results of the study provide a further explanation for
understanding the willingness of elderly people to adopt digital payments during the COVID-19 pandemic and
bring inspiration to system developers and social managers to reduce the risk of COVID-19 pandemic and
increase the share of digital payments for this category.

The authors are grateful to the editor and reviewers for insightful comments that significantly
improved the paper. This research was supported by the four funds: (1) National Natural Science
Fund of China (72172129); (2) National Social Science Fund of China (22BSH136); (3) Humanities and
International Journal of Social
Social Science Fund of Ministry of Education of China (21YJA63003); (4) Service Science and Economics
Innovation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province (KL2205; KL2216). © Emerald Publishing Limited
0306-8293
Disclosure statement: The authors report no potential conflicts of interest in this study. DOI 10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0759
IJSE Originality/value – This paper used the extended TPB theory to construct a fundamental environmental
motivation (FEM) framework for understanding the main influencing factors of elderly users’ intention to
adopt digital payments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords COVID-19 pandemic, Elderly users, Theory of planned behavior, Perceived value, Perceived risk,
Digital payments intention
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The epidemic prevention of COVID-19 has led to a large-scale blockade, which has increased
people’s social distance and led to a surge in the use of digital technology (De et al., 2020;
Vinerean et al., 2022). Digital payments refer to the behavior of consumers who use non-cash
forms of payments; with the development of science and technology, digital payment methods
become more diverse and intelligent, such as WeChat, Alipay, bank apps, and other methods in
the form of code scanning or facial scanning. Moreover, with the support of mobile technology,
digital payments are widely used in smartphone applications such as utility payments, bill
payments, and online shopping (Oliveira et al., 2016; Bojjagani et al., 2023; Zhao et al., 2022).
Furthermore, the importance of digital payments (especially contactless) to people’s daily
activities has reached a new level (Sam et al., 2023). For example, WeChat payment has brought
great facilities to people and greatly supported the development of e-commerce (Tang et al.,
2021). Although the share of digital payments is increasing, the elderly still tend to pay in cash.
For instance, Ho et al. (2022) found that cash payment is still the main way of payment through
the study of 10 million transactions in hundreds of grocery stores within 14 months. This is
mainly because the elderly have operational difficulties and payment security risks in digital
payment methods (Hanif and Lallie, 2021; Cham et al., 2022). Aduba (2021) found, based on
Nigeria’s sample survey, that the proportion of users using e-banking to buy goods or services
is still very low, and it decreases with the increase in users’ age. However, concerning the
COVID-19 pandemic, the elderly are considered the high-risk population of the current
epidemic, and it is worth noting that the mortality rate among the elderly is higher, especially
among people aged 65 to 70 (Pan and Liu, 2022); therefore, the risk of unnecessary infection
increases through physical currency transactions, and goes against the development of global
digital economy and culture (Cham et al., 2022). To sum up, the purpose of this study is to
explore the main influencing factors of elderly users’ willingness to adopt digital payments.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, cash payment leads to medium transmission and close
contact between people, which may increase the possibility of disease transmission. Moreover,
the new changes in digital payments were mainly reflected in the consumer behavior, and
people’s use value and habits of digital payments were further developed (Santosa et al., 2021).
Digital payments reduce the frequency of direct contact (e.g. through cash media) or crowded
queues between consumers and merchants as well as it reduce the risk of the COVID-19
pandemic spread. However, to our knowledge, so far few studies systematically discussed the
influence of the COVID-19 epidemic on the digital payments willingness of the elderly
population. Previous studies have shown that when people’s health is threatened, risk
perception and theory of planned behavior (TPB) can predict consumers’ behavior, and risk
perception can influence their attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control,
therefore improving social distancing (Adiyoso and Wilopo, 2021). At the same time, digital
payments may be affected by availability or external environment conditions (such as urgency
or health risks), and it also contains some complicated obstacles (such as complexity and risks)
(Talukder et al., 2020). In this study, TPB theory will be introduced as the main theoretical basis,
and the perceived COVID-19 severity will be regarded as the environmental factor that affects
TPB factors (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control); moreover,
a structural model for predicting the elderly’s digital payments intention will be developed.
 Through previous studies and ascertainment, value and risk have been considered as Elderly users’
important factors in predicting consumer acceptance of products or services (Zeithaml et al., intention of
1988; Cocosila and Trabelsi, 2016; Sinha et al., 2019). In fact, a perceived value refers to the net
value calculated between the income obtained and the cost of expenditure by consumers
digital
accepting a product or a service. As for the perceived risk, it is linked to the risk brought by payments
consumers’ acceptance of a product or service (Zeithaml et al., 1988). The main reason for the
resistance of the elderly to digital payments is that there are still operational obstacles
regarding this technology toward elderly, and they are unwilling to make more efforts to try
to adopt it in their daily life; therefore, they think that the benefits brought by digital payment
are not great, i.e. the perceived net value of the digital payment is small. In addition, elderly
people are particularly careful about digital payment behavior. Therefore, this study
introduces value and risk factors as extended variables of the TPB theoretical framework and
constructs an extended TPB model to predict digital payment intention for the elderly.
Therefore, this study introduces TPB theory as the main theoretical basis and defines the
perceived value and the perceived risk as the expansion factors to understand the influencing
factors for elderly users’ intention to adopt digital payments. Previous studies have discussed
more the influence of perceived user-interface quality, perceived usefulness, perceived
security and privacy issues, and self-efficacy on user satisfaction and adoption intentions
(Yang et al., 2015; Sinha et al., 2019; Gupta et al., 2020). However, in opposite to previous
studies, we predict that the infection risk of the COVID-19 pandemic would change the elderly
users’ perception regarding the importance of attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived
behavior control, and it will also affect the elderly users’ judgment of the value of digital
payments and their perception of use risk. Furthermore, we test the moderating effects of the
elderly users’ innovativeness, intergenerational support, and social support, and understand
how to improve the elderly users’ intention to adopt digital payments from their personal
technical level and external support points of view.

2. Theoretical basis and research hypothesis

2.1 Theory of planned behavior and digital payments intention
Based on theory of reasoned action (TRA), Ajzen (1985) added a perceived behavior control
variable to measure the individual’s actual ability to control things (such as the ability to
manipulate new technologies), thus putting in practice the TPB model. In the research related
to e-commerce or other new technology adoption, some scholars have studied the consumer
behavior based on the TPB model or the extended TPB model. For instance, Peng et al. (2012)
discussed users’ Internet adoption intention and behavior from social and psychological
factors based on the TPB model and found that individual’s self-efficacy played a moderating
role between Internet adoption intention and antecedents. Some scholars have also
introduced perceived trust and perceived risk to predict the privacy protection intention of
Facebook users based on the TPB model. The results showed that the basic variables of the
TPB model, such as attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control, affect users’
privacy protection intention. Moreover, perceived risk has a positive impact on users’ privacy
protection intention (Saeri et al., 2014). Furthermore, Ho et al. (2017) found that, besides the
basic elements of the theory of planned behavior, the past privacy protection behavior (PPB)
of adolescents and the regulation of parents have a significant positive impact on adolescents’
privacy protection attitudes and on future behavior. In addition, Yuen et al. (2020) took the
acceptance of autonomous vehicles (AVs) as the research goal, and took the cognitive
structure and affective structure as the pre-variables of the three basic factors of the TPB
model; the research found that cognitive and affective structures influenced attitudes and
behavior willingness whereas subjective norms had a positive impact on users’ adoption
willingness.
IJSE Based on the TPB model, some scholars have also considered the age factor, consumers’
willingness to adopt new technologies, or the influence of a specific environment (such as the
COVID-19 pandemic) on consumers’ behavior. For example, Li
ebana-Cabanillas et al. (2021)
found that subjective norms, risks, perceived usefulness, customer brand participation, and
trust are the most important influencing factors of NFC payment persistence. Further
analysis showed that the elderly pay special attention to privacy and security risks, while the
young users pay more attention to such elements as enjoyment and personal innovativeness.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pan and Liu (2022) discussed people’s Mask-wearing
intention in air transportation and found that attitudes, descriptive norms, risk avoidance,
and material seeking of COVID-19 pandemic information significantly affected passengers’
willingness to wear masks. The elderly were significantly affected by descriptive norms and
risk avoidance, in contrast to young or middle-aged people. We predict that for the elderly,
they consider the benefits and risks of using digital payments compared to cash, and form a
preliminary attitude; at the same time, it will also be influenced by others around you who use
digital payments. Based on the TPB model, this study holds that attitude, subjective norms,
and perceived behavior control are three influencing factors for the elderly to adopt digital
payments. Therefore, hypotheses H1, H2, and H3 are proposed.
H1. Attitudes are positively related to digital payment intention during the COVID-19
pandemic.
H2. Subjective norms are positively related to digital payment intention during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
H3. Perceived behavior control is positively related to digital payment intention during
the COVID-19 pandemic.

2.2 Perceived value, perceived risk, and attitudes

The perceived value is defined as the overall evaluation of the difference between the income
and the cost of a service or product (Cocosila and Trabelsi, 2016). It has made important
contributions in measuring consumers’ acceptance of new technologies, such as in online
shopping, mobile services, and mobile payments (Cocosila and Trabelsi, 2016). Moreover, the
perceived value is an important factor to improve the product adoption rate. A related research
also found that the perceived value of Mobile Financial Services Apps (MFSAs) has a
significant positive impact on customers’ overall satisfaction with banks (Karjaluoto et al.,
2019a, b). As for the perceived risk, it is an important obstacle to consumers’ adoption of mobile
payments (Cocosila and Trabelsi, 2016) because risk represents a strong uncertainty and even
threat (Chong et al., 2012; Sinha et al., 2019). Furthermore, security and privacy risks negatively
affect consumers’ attitudes toward adopting mobile payments (Li
ebana-Cabanillas et al., 2014).
In the mobile technology delivery, perceived values and risks are important factors to
measure users’ continuous adoption (Slade et al., 2015; Sharma et al., 2019). Concerning the
attitude, it includes an individual’s psychological evaluation of something or the predicted
result, which could be favorable or unfavorable to him (Ajzen, 1985). Therefore, we speculate
that the elderly’s perception of the value of digital payments may be reflected through three
aspects (e.g. performance, emotional expression, or social status expression), and they have a
positive impact on their behavior and attitude. However, due to the elderly lack of control over
digital payments and self-learning ability, their perceived risks of digital payments (such as
transaction risks, security risks, and privacy risks) have a significant negative impact on
their attitudes toward using such tools, and further affect consumers’ behavioral intention.
Therefore, we propose hypotheses H4 and H5.
H4. Perceived value has a positive influence on attitudes.
 H5. Perceived risk has a negative impact on attitudes. Elderly users’
intention of
2.3 Influence of perceived severity of COVID-19 on TPB’s factors digital
PSC-19→ Attitudes. In previous studies, attitude was an important antecedent variable to payments
measure consumers’ willingness to act. It represents also the degree of an individual’s
preference for a certain product or service, which largely predicts the users’ behavior
(Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975); furthermore, attitude is influenced by many factors. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, people’s satisfaction with digital payments has improved, and the
frequency of digital payments has also improved (Santosa et al., 2021). When the elderly
perceive the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic risk, they will consider the advantages of
digital payments, which will have a positive effect on their behavior and attitude. In addition,
the motivation theory is an internal state of an individual, urging him to move towards a
certain goal, and then produces external behavior. When the elderly perceive that the COVID-
19 pandemic will harm their health, they will have the evasive motivation and positive
behavior intention. Therefore, we propose hypothesis H6.
H6. Perceived severity of COVID-19 has a positive influence on attitudes.
PSC-19→Subjective Norms. The majority of references put pressure on people to
encourage the execution of specific actions, which is how subjective standards are
distinguished. Subjective norms were particularly significant in the prediction of negative
social behaviors as the severity of COVID-19 has brought negative risk perception to people,
and it is likely to strengthen the subjective normative behavior of the elderly to adopt new
technologies to resist COVID-19. According to Pan and Liu (2022), in an epidemic
environment, middle-aged and elderly people (over 50 years old) are particularly sensitive to
risk avoidance and descriptive norms of infection, and are more willing to wear masks to
prevent infection on airplanes. In comparison to young people, the elderly demonstrated more
active behavior control and subjective social norms, had a stronger sense of responsibility,
and were more willing to wear masks to prevent infection. We predict that the epidemic
situation will inspire the elderly to have stronger subjective norms, and continue to arouse a
stronger willingness to digital payment, so as to reduce the spread of the COVID-19
pandemic. Therefore, we propose hypothesis H7.
H7. Perceived severity of COVID-19 has a positive influence on subjective norms.
PSC-19→Perceived Behavior Control. According to Ajzen’s (1985) explanation, the
perceived behavior control refers to the difficulty of an individual in performing a
characteristic behavior, which reflects the belief in its own execution. According to Adiyoso
and Wilopo (2021), COVID-19 pandemic information will stimulate people’s risk perception
and positively influence users’ perceived behavior control. We predict that, when the elderly
perceived the epidemic risk to be serious, they will take the initiative to make extra efforts to
improve their ability to resist the epidemic spread, such as controlling the information
technology to reduce contact with others to reduce the risk of infection. According to our
predictions, older people will feel more in charge of digital payment technologies once they
realize how bad the pandemic is. Therefore, we propose hypothesis H8.
H8. Perceived severity of COVID-19 has a positive influence on perceived behavior
control.

2.4 Moderating factors

Considering that the personal innovativeness of the elderly group is different from other
groups support (such as family or colleagues), we put forward personal innovativeness,
IJSE intergenerative support, and social support to understand how to improve the elderly users’
willingness to adopt digital payment technology.
2.4.1 Personal innovativeness. In the delivery research of digital payments technology,
the user’s personality characteristics should be considered. Among the influencing factors
of the new technology adoption, some studies have pointed out that personal
characteristics, such as personal innovativeness, will affect users’ acceptance ability and
willingness to adopt new technologies (Karjaluoto et al., 2019a, b; Patil et al., 2020);
therefore, their risk perception of new technologies is not so sensitive. Moreover, referring
to Patil et al. (2020), personal innovativeness has become a key influencing factor in mobile
commerce. Although old people’s ability to accept new technologies is generally poor, there
may still be significant differences among different individuals. For example, some people
are old, but they have a young psychological age, and they still have a strong motivation to
learn new technologies, which will encourage them to have stronger innovation ability and
a stronger willingness to master and adopt digital payments skills. Therefore, we propose
hypotheses 9 (a), (b), and (c).
H9a_c. Personal innovativeness plays a positive moderating role in the relationship
between (a) Attention (ATT), (b) Subjective Norms (SN), (c) Perceived Behavior
Control (PBC), and Digital Personal Information (DPI).
2.4.2 Intergenerational and social support. For the elderly with weak technology acceptance
ability, the support of family members, such as the children, and the support of society,
such as the help of colleagues or technology developers to make products more suitable for
the elderly, will lead to greater possibility for the elderly to adopt digital payment
technology. For example, when these entities provide help with new digital technology,
they will enhance their ability to control technology and have a more positive attitude
towards related digital technology products. Moreover, the influence of family members or
friends will affect the consumers’ adoption of technological innovation products
(or services) in terms of subjective norms, which strengthens consumers’ awareness
regarding the technological innovation products (or services); therefore, this regulates the
self-innovation technology adoption behavior of the elderly. In the comprehensive
technology adoption model, scholars have also verified the importance of subjective norms
and found that it has a significant impact on users’ willingness to continuously adopt new
technologies (Li
ebana-Cabanils et al., 2014; Sharma et al., 2015). In the past, scholars have
found that subjective norms affect people’s willingness to adopt mobile payment
technology, especially that social influence has a significant positive impact on users’
willingness to adopt it continuously (Li
ebana-Cabanils et al., 2014). However, at present,
digital payment technology is more popular, and the application of digital payment by
others will also have a great impact on the elderly. Specifically, in the COVID-19 pandemic
environment, the adoption of digital payment methods by family or friends supports and
encourages the elderly to adopt digital payment to a greater extent. Therefore, we predict
that external support has a positive regulatory effect on the control of the elderly’s
perceptual behavior, and we put forward hypotheses H10 and H11 in detail. Finally, we
construct the research framework for this paper. Figure 1 shows the proposed overall
research framework.
H10a_c. Intergenerational support plays a positive moderating role in the relationship
between (a) ATT, (b) SN, (c) PBC, and DPI.
H11a_c. Social support plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between (a)
ATT, (b) SN, (c) PBC, and DPI.
 Fundamental Perceived value Perceived risk Elderly users’
factors (PV) (PR)
intention of
H4 digital
H6
Attitudes
H1
payments
(ATT)

Perceived severity
Environmental Subjective Norms Digital Payments Intention
of COVID-19 H7 H2
factor (SN) (DPI)
(PSC-19)

Perceived Behavioral Control

H8 H3
(PBC)

● (H9a–c) Personal innovativeness (PI)

Motivation
factors ● (H10a–c) Intergenerational Support (IS)
● (H11a–c) Social Support (SS) Figure 1.
Overall conceptual
framework
Source(s): Created by authors

3. Methods
3.1 Procedure and participants
This study aimed to predict the factors that influence the users’ willingness to adopt digital
payments. Adopting the suggestion of Talukder et al. (2020), the targeted population of this
study was participants over the age of 60; moreover, 360 persons were recruited on the
Credamo platform. As there were enough participants on Credamo platform, the age of
the samples could be limited, and participants could freely participate in online surveys.
As the subjects are all elderly people, they could answer the research questions online or
asked others to help them fill them out. We excluded the participants who did not pass the
systematic screening of questions during the experiment, we finally got 320 valid
questionnaires (Females 5 157, 49.1%, Males 5 69.61, SD 5 7.471). The specific sample
characteristics were showed in Table 1.

Characteristic Category Number Percentage Characteristic Category Number Percentage

Gender Female 157 49.1% Age (year) 61–65 125 39.1%

Male 163 50.9% 66–70 71 22.2%
Income ≤3,000 128 40.0% 71–75 68 21.2%
(yuan) 3,001– 60 18.8% Above 75 56 17.5%
5,000
5,001– 51 15.9% Education High 177 55.3%
7,000 School or
lower
7,001– 43 13.4% Junior or 97 30.3%
9,000 Bachelor’s
degree
Above 38 11.9% Master’s 46 14.4%
9,000 degree or
above Table 1.
Total 320 100% Total 320 100% Descriptive statistics of
Source(s): Created by authors samples
IJSE 3.2 Measures
The measurement items in this study were all adapted from the mature scales and were
measured by the 7-point Likert scale. Moreover, the measurement items are shown in Table 2,
and the control demographic variables, such as gender, age, education level, and wag are also
included (Li
ebana-Cabanillas et al., 2014).

Scale
Adapted from Construct items Contents FL CR α
Cocosila and Perceived Value PV1 I think it’s practical to use 0.853 0.903 0.839
Trabelsi (2016), digital payments
Sinha et al. (2019) PV2 I think using digital payments 0.885
is a pleasure
PV3 I think the use of digital 0.872
payments promotes social
progress
Malhotra (2004), Perceived Risk PR1 I think there is a risk of 0.922 0.945 0.912
Yang et al. (2015), operation failure when using
Sinha et al. (2019) digital payments
PR2 I think there is a security risk 0.918
in using digital payments
methods
PR3 I think there is a privacy risk 0.926
in using digital payments
methods
Peng et al. (2012), Attitudes ATT1 I like to use digital payments 0.919 0.923 0.874
Pan and Liu (2022) ATT2 I think it’s easy to use digital 0.891
payments
ATT3 I am willing to learn more new 0.872
functions of digital payments
Subjective SN1 Influenced by my family, I also 0.907 0.917 0.865
Norms use digital payments more
often
SN2 I will be influenced by my 0.871
friends, and I use digital
payments more often
SN3 Influenced by other important 0.884
people, I also use digital
payments more
Perceived PBC1 I have the ability to use digital 0.917 0.931 0.889
Behavioral payments in my life
Control PBC2 I think the function of digital 0.885
payments is clear and
understandable
PBC3 I think the new digital 0.913
payments method is easy to
master
Sinha et al. (2019) Digital DPI1 I am willing to use digital 0.915 0.924 0.876
Payments payments
Intention DPI2 I will use digital payments 0.884
more in my daily life in the
future
DPI3 I would like to recommend 0.887
Table 2. other elderly people to use
Measurement items digital payments
and CFA Source(s): Created by authors
3.3 Statistical analysis Elderly users’
First, the SmartPLS3.3 was used to analyze the structural equation model (SEM), the partial intention of
least squares-structural equation model (PLS-SEM) with a bootstrap procedure with 5,000
replications to check the factors, the reliability, and the validity. The fitness, path coefficient,
digital
and mediation effects of the structural model were also analyzed (Hair et al., 2014). With the payments
help of SPSS Process macro tool (model 1), the moderating effect of this study was analyzed.

4. Results
4.1 Confirmatory factor analysis
4.1.1 Reliability analysis. The reliability of the variables was tested by Cronbach coefficient
(Cronbach’s α) and the combinatorial reliability (CR) as shown in Table 2. The Cronbach’s α of
each variable was greater than 0.9, and the CR was also greater than 0.9. Both indexes
exceeded the standard value of 0.7, indicating that each scale had both the strong consistency
and the good reliability.
4.1.2 Validity analysis. Firstly, the standardized factor load (FL) (as shown in Table 2)
coefficient and the average variance extracted (AVE) index (as shown in Table 3) were used to
test the convergent validity. The values of FL were greater than 0.872, which was larger than
the threshold of 0.7, indicating that each item could well represent each latent variable. As for
the values of AVE, they were also greater than 0.757, higher than the threshold of 0.50,
indicating that the measurement error of each item was small. Then, the discriminant validity
of a construct was examined. As shown in Table 3, the absolute value of the correlation
coefficient of each variable was less than the square root of the diagonal AVE, indicating that
there was a good discrimination between the variables.

4.2 Results of the structural equations models

We selected the bootstrap 5,000, 95% CI for PLS analysis. The results showed that the
structural model (χ 2 5 560.224, NFI 5 0.90, GoF 5 0.501 > 0.300) had good validity. The
standardized root mean-square residual (SRMR) was 0.041 < 0.08, and the interpretation
strength R2 of behavioral attitude, and digital payments intention were all above 0.5, and
f2 > 0.02 also met the analysis requirements (Hair et al., 2014). Therefore, Figure 2 shows the
regression results of the global structural equation model in this study.
The path coefficient analysis of the SEM is presented in Table 4. In more detail, the path
coefficients “ATT→DPI” (β 5 0.270, p < 0.001), “SN→DPI” (β 5 0.387, p < 0.001), and
“PBC→DPI” (β 5 0.223, p < 0.001) were all significant; therefore, this shows that the three
dimensions of TPB are important factors to predict the willingness of the elderly to adopt
digital payments. Thus, hypotheses H1, H2, and H3 are verified. Similar to previous studies,
the TPB model can predict the consumers’ behavior towards intelligent technology

Construct AVE 1 2 3 4 5 6

1.PV 0.757 0.870

2.PR 0.850
0.416 0.922
3.ATT 0.799 0.661
0.558 0.894
4.SN 0.788 0.399
0.308 0.621 0.887
5.PBC 0.819 0.409
0.262 0.663 0.667 0.905
6.DPI 0.802 0.412
0.416 0.659 0.704 0.661 0.895 Table 3.
Note(s): Italic data indicates the square roots of AVE AVE and discriminant
Source(s): Created by authors validity
IJSE Perceived value Perceived risk

H4 0.459***

H6 0.203*** Attitudes H1 0.270***

Perceived severity H2 0.387***

H7 0.470*** Subjective Norms Digital Payments Intention
of COVID-19

Figure 2.
Results of the H8 0.437*** Perceived Behavioral Control H3 0.223***
structural
equations model
Source(s): Created by authors

95%CI
Path Effect STDEV T 2.50% 97.50% Result

ATT→DPI 0.270*** 0.064 4.251 0.148 0.398 Supported H1

SN→DPI 0.387*** 0.062 6.200 0.262 0.504 Supported H2
PBC→DPI 0.223*** 0.058 3.828 0.109 0.339 Supported H3
PV→ATT 0.459*** 0.056 8.241 0.352 0.569 Supported H4
PR→ATT
0.307*** 0.043 7.067
0.390
0.220 Supported H5
PSC-19→ATT 0.203*** 0.054 3.748 0.097 0.312 Supported H6
PSC-19→SN 0.470*** 0.052 8.973 0.361 0.565 Supported H7
PSC-19→PBC 0.437*** 0.047 9.254 0.343 0.528 Supported H8
Table 4. Note(s): *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; n.s. 5 not significant
Main path coefficient Source(s): Created by authors

(Yuen et al., 2020) and specific consumption environment (such as the new epidemic situation)
(Pan and Liu, 2022). It showed that the three basic factors of the TPB model can predict the
elderly’s intention to use digital payment methods. Moreover, the path coefficients
“PV→ATT” (β 5 0.459, p < 0.001) and “PR→ATT” (β 5
0.307, p < 0.001) were
significant, indicating that perceived value and the perceived risk explain to a great extent the
attitudes of the elderly towards digital payments from two aspects; therefore, H4 and H5 were
verified. Impact on the COVID-19 pandemic, SEM-tested results showed that it has a
significant influence on the behavioral attitude (β 5 0.203, p < 0.001), the subjective norm
(β 5 0.470, p < 0.001), and the perceived behavior control (β 5 0.437, p < 0.001); therefore,
hypothesis H6, H7, and H8 were also verified. The conclusion shows that when the epidemic
situation in COVID-19 is serious and to reduce the risk of disease transmission, the elderly
showed a more positive attitude and a stronger subjective norm towards digital payment
methods, and they would also make more efforts trying to deploy digital payments.

4.3 Mediation effects analysis

Further analysis (refer to Table 5) showed that the mediation effects of paths
“PSC-19→ATT→DPI” (β 5 0.055, p 5 0.006), “PSC-19→SN→DPI” (β 5 0.182, p < 0.001),
and “PSC-19→PBC→DPI” (β 5 0.098, p < 0.001) were significant. Moreover, 95%CI did not
include 0, indicating that the perceived value and the perceived risk affected the elderly users’
digital payments intention. Moreover, the mediation effects of paths “PV→ATT→DPI”
(β 5 0.124, p < 0.001) and “PR→ATT→DPI” (β 5
0.083, p < 0.001) indicated that behavioral Elderly users’
attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control all play a significant mediation intention of
role between the perceived severity of COVID-19 pandemic and the users’ digital payments
intention. Although the mediation effects test was not the main target of the current research,
digital
it further determines the explanatory motivation of the relevant variables of our payments
research model.

4.4 Moderation effects

According to our research hypothesis, the moderation effects were tested and the moderation
effects in the paths “ATT→DPI, SN→DPI, and PBC→DPI” were examined by using Process
Model 1 in the SPSS Process macro document.
(1) Moderation Effect: Personal Innovativeness. The results showed that the
moderation effect “ATT*PI→DPI” was significantly positive (β 5 0.3246,
P 5 0.0012), H9(a) was supported; as for the moderation effect “SN*PI→DPI”,
it was not significant (β 5 0.0317, P 5 0.7590), H9(b) was not supported; moreover, the
moderation effect “PBC*PI→DPI” was significant (β 5 0.2459, P 5 0.0341), H9(c) was
supported. This may be due to the fact that the elderly with strong personal
innovativeness have a more positive attitude and sense of control towards digital
payments, whereas the personal innovativeness has no significant impact on
self-subjective norms (such as other people’s views).
(2) Moderation Effect: Intergenerational Support. The moderation effect
“ATT*IS→DPI” was significantly positive (β 5 0.2191, P 5 0.0239); therefore, the
H10(a) was supported. The moderation effect “SN*IS→DPI” was not significant
(β 5 0.0235, P 5 0.8135); therefore, H10(b) was not supported; Moreover, the
moderation effect “PBC*IS→DPI” was significant (β 5 0.1951, P 5 0.0437) and
H10(c) was supported. This may be due to the help of young people at home for
making the elderly have a more positive attitude and sense of control over digital
payment methods, and this support has no significant impact on the subjective norms
of the elderly (such as other people’s views).
(3) Moderation Effect: Social Support. The moderation effect “ATT*SS→DPI” was
significantly positive (β 5 0.2341, P 5 0.0158); therefore, H11(a) was supported; the
moderation effect “SN*SS→DPI” was not significant (β 5 0.0333, P 5 0.7402); hence,
H11(b) was not supported; The moderation effect “PBC*SS→DPI” was significant
(β 5 0.2136, P 5 0.0450); thus, H11(c) was supported. This may be due to the help of
external social workers that can make the elderly have a more positive attitude and
sense of control over digital payment methods, and this support has no significant
impact on the subjective norms of the elderly (such as other people’s views).

95%CI
Path Effect STDEV T 2.50% 97.50% Mediation effects

PV→ATT→DPI 0.124*** 0.034 3.631 0.064 0.198 Supported ATT

PR→ATT→DPI
0.083*** 0.022 3.714
0.130
0.043 Supported ATT
PSC-19 →ATT→DPI 0.055** 0.020 2.750 0.022 0.099 Supported ATT
PSC-19→SN→DPI 0.182*** 0.038 4.838 0.110 0.257 Supported SN Table 5.
PSC-19→PBC→DPI 0.098*** 0.028 3.481 0.045 0.156 Supported PBC Mediation effects
Source(s): Created by authors analysis
IJSE 5. Discussion and implications
5.1 Discussion
Based on the main research framework of TPB, this study identified the influencing factors of
the elderly users’ digital payment intention. The results showed that attitudes, subjective norms,
and perceived behavior control were the three basic factors that influence the adoption of digital
payment methods by the elderly (H1, H2, and H3). The behavioral attitude was influenced by
many factors, based on previous studies on the influence of value and risks on consumers’
attitudes and behavior in e-commerce; as for this study, it introduces the perceived value and
perceived risk into the extended TPB model (Ajzen, 1985), and finds that perceived value and
perceived risk have a good explanation for attitudes (H4 and H5). It showed that elderly are still
concerned about the value and risk of digital payments. Even though e-commerce has made
rapid development, the perceived risk still hinders the elderly from adopting digital payments.
Moreover, this study considered the perceived severity of COVID-19 as the external environment
and examined its influence on elderly users’ digital payment intention. The results show that the
perceived severity of COVID-19 affected the users’ digital payment intention through behavioral
attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (H6, H7, and H8). In addition, this
study examines the moderating effects of personal innovativeness, intergenerational support,
and social support. The results showed that moderated variables promote the relationship
between attitudes/perceived behavior control and digital payment intention. Table 6
summarized the hypotheses supported and rejected by the experiment.

5.2 Theoretical implications

In this study, the elderly as a research group that introduced the theory of planned behavior
and they comprehensively consider the influence of basic factors (perceived value, perceived
value risk), environmental factors (perceived severity of COVID-19), and motivation factors
(personal innovativeness, intergenerational support, and social support) on the digital
payment intention. Specifically, it is embodied in the following three points.

Hypothesis Content Accepted Rejected

H1 Attitudes are positively related to digital payment intention during the H1e
COVID-19 pandemic
H2 Subjective norms are positively related to digital payment intention H2
during the COVID-19 pandemic
H3 Perceived behavior control is positively related to digital payment H3
intention during the COVID-19 pandemic
H4 Perceived value has a positive influence on attitudes H4
H5 Perceived risk has a negative impact on attitudes H5
H6 Perceived severity of COVID-19 has a positive influence on attitudes H6
H7 Perceived severity of COVID-19 has a positive influence on subjective H7
norms
H8 Perceived severity of COVID-19 has a positive influence on perceived H8
behavior control
H9a-c Personal innovativeness plays a positive moderating role in the H9a H9c H9b
relationship between a) Attention (ATT), b) Subjective Norms (SN), c)
Perceived Behavior Control (PBC), and Digital Personal Information
(DPI)
H10a-c Intergenerational support plays a positive moderating role in the H10a H10b
Table 6. relationship between (a) ATT, (b) SN, (c) PBC, and DPI H10c
Overview of accepted H11a-c Social support plays a positive moderating role in the relationship H11a H11b
and rejected between (a) ATT, (b) SN, (c) PBC, and DPI H11c
hypotheses Source(s): Created by authors
First, as far as the research purpose and object are concerned, digital payment has become a Elderly users’
hot topic in the era of the digital economy and has been concerned by many scholars intention of
(Chong et al., 2012; Karjaluoto et al., 2019a, b; Bojjagani et al., 2023), discussed from the value
risk and other aspects (Cocosila and Trabelsi, 2016). Previous research focused on the whole
digital
user (including young people) and discussed the influence of users on digital payment payments
intention. More closely, scholars initially discussed the use of cash and non-cash in the
context of the COVID-19 epidemic (Sam et al., 2023). However, with the development of
intelligent technology, intelligent services have been widely used in people’s lives, and the
study of the digital payment intention of the elderly is an urgent and important research topic
(Li
ebana-Cabanillas et al., 2021; Hanif and Lallie, 2021), and the elderly are more affected by
the COVID-19 epidemic (Pan and Liu, 2022). The problem of digital payment for the elderly
has also become a social problem, and maintaining social distance has become an important
way to reduce the spread of diseases (Adiyoso and Wilopo, 2021). However, there is a great
deficiency in systematically understanding the influence mechanism of the COVID-19
epidemic on the digital payment methods for the elderly. Therefore, this study takes the
elderly as the research object, based on the background of the COVID-19 epidemic, discusses
the main influencing factors of the elderly users’ adoption of digital payment methods, and
expands the explanation of understanding the theory of digital payment intention of the
elderly.
Second, this study builds an extended TPB model to understand the digital payment
intention of elderly users. Previous studies focused more on the influence of a single factor on
Internet technology adoption or mobile payment (such as privacy or security) or used an
overly complicated model to predict the consumers’ willingness to adopt digital payment
methods. However, TPB theory can more systematically explore individual behavior will
from the comprehensive perspective of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavior
control (Ajzen, 1985), and has made important contributions in predicting the adoption of user
network technology (Peng et al., 2012) and consumer intelligence technology (Yuen et al.,
2020). Under the background of the COVID-19 epidemic, scholars also tried to discuss the
changes in consumer behavior by using the planned behavior theory. Therefore, this study
introduces TPB theory as an understanding of the digital payment intention of the elderly in
the context of COVID-19. At the same time, considering that the value risk is also an
important factor for people to consider digital payments (Cocosila and Trabelsi, 2016), this
study brings perceived addiction and perceived risk into the expansion factor of TPB theory.
Third, this study further examines the comprehensive influence of perceived COVID-19
severity on the elderly’s intention to accept digital payment methods from two points of view:
self-ability (personal innovativeness) and external support (intergenerational and social
support). Previous studies have shown that personal innovation ability has an important
influence on the acceptance of new technologies (Karjaluoto et al., 2019a, b), but unlike young
people, the elderly need support from other external sources, so the influence of internal and
external support factors on the control of perceived behavior of the elderly are considered.
The obtained results show that the personal innovativeness and external support of the
elderly have played an important regulatory role.
To sum up, this study is based on TPB theory, which considers the influence of perceived
COVID-19 severity, perceived value and perceived risk factors, and the role of external
support, and systematically constructs comprehensive influencing factors to predict the
elderly’s intention to adopt digital payment method.

5.3 Managerial implications

The conclusion of this study also has important theoretical value, and its theoretical
contribution is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.
IJSE The first aspect is to optimize the digital payment platform, improve the sense of the value
of digital payments for the elderly, and reduce the risk of digital payments. Previous research
regarding the value and risk was important to define the influencing factors of digital
payments (Cocosila and Trabelsi, 2016); moreover, our research results also showed that
value and risk had a significant impact on the attitude factors of the TPB theoretical
framework. The digital payments platform should consider the consumption habits of the
elderly, increase the applicability of the elderly, such as the old version of the model already
set by the mobile application, and set up modules commonly used by elderly users, so as to
make the perception of elderly users more convenient and increase the perceived value.
In addition, to add a more convenient risk control module, various financial institutions have
also considered the resistance or psychological obstacles encountered by the elderly in using
digital payments in many aspects. For example, the bank self-help transfer method adds the
function of “account arrival every other day”, which prolongs people’s reaction time and
makes people (especially the elderly) more likely to cancel transactions caused by temporary
mis-consideration or fraud, reducing therefore the security risk of digital payments.
Moreover, digital payments platform should set up a transaction risk alarm prompt module
and obvious privacy switch to reduce the risk for the elderly and improve the attitude and
willingness to pay digitally.
Second, previous research conclusions show that the privacy of digital payments (Sinha et al.,
2019) or payment risk (Li
ebana-Cabanillas et al., 2014) is an important factor affecting people’s
use. This study regards the COVID-19 epidemic as an important external factor that affects the
digital payments of the elderly because this population is more vulnerable and has a higher
mortality rate during the COVID-19 epidemic (Pan and Liu, 2022). The conclusion of this study
shows that the severity of the epidemic in COVID-19 can positively affect the attitude of the
elderly toward digital payments. In the context of the epidemic situation in COVID-19,
encouraging the elderly to improve their safe social distancing will be one of the effective ways
to reduce the risk of infection in COVID-19 (Adiyoso and Wilopo, 2021), and using digital
payments is an effective means to improve their social distance and to promote the elderly to
continue using digital payments, therefore, becoming a habit. Similarly, we can speculate that
other health risks can also change the attitude of the elderly toward digital payments.
Third, our conclusion regarding the adjustment factors shows that personal
innovativeness and external support can also affect the elderly’s willingness to pay for
digital payments. This is mainly to improve the attitude and perceptual behavior control of
the elderly. Advertising the advantages and popularity of digital payments in the
community, especially the advantages regarding the elderly in using digital payments,
encouraging them to give full play to their subjective initiative, and reducing their fear of
digital payments would be good steps to commercialize this idea. In addition, specialists can
be set up to help them operate and master the skills of digital payments. Furthermore, it is
also necessary to mobilize family members to educate the elderly on digital payments skills,
such as community managers can use publicity to tell their children how to help the elderly
improve their digital payments skills and make it more convenient for the elderly; Finally,
supermarkets can increase points or discounts to encourage and instruct the elderly to use
digital payments in e-commerce.

6. Limitations and future research

Although this study explored and verified the important influencing factors of digital
payments for the elderly, there may still be unknown factors that affect the digital payments
willingness of the elderly, as Hanif and Lallie (2021) pointed out that qualitative (e.g. the
interview method) and quantitative methods should be used to study the adoption of digital
payments technology by the elderly. In fact, this study expands to reflect the influence of
perceived severity of COVID-19 pandemic on the digital payments willingness of the elderly. Elderly users’
However, there are still other external environmental factors that promote (or hinder) the intention of
digital payments willingness of the elderly. On the other hand, this study considers
the elderly in China as the research sample and did not make a comparative analysis with the
digital
samples of the elderly in other countries. Therefore, cross-country sample data (Chong et al., payments
2012) can be also considered in the future to test the applicability of the model and the
differences among people in different countries.

7. Conclusion
Our research showed that the COVID-19 pandemic affects elderly users’ willingness to pay
digitally through behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behaviors. On the one
hand, caregivers of the elderly (including family members and similar institutions in nursing
homes) as well as social managers can encourage the elderly to use digital payments, reduce
the risk of physical cash-borne diseases, and increase people’s social distance to reduce the
risk of infection in COVID-19.
We believe that this will be one of the most effective measures in the normalization of
COVID-19 pandemic management. On the other hand, we should take advantage of the
development trend of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic to promote the
development of digital payments, which has also become one of the driving forces to promote
the development of digital finance. In short, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, elderly
are more willing to use digital payments. Digital technology strengthens the level of social
management, and, at the same time, it also promotes the development of the digital economy.

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Corresponding author
Yushi Jiang can be contacted at: 906375866@qq.com

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