What insisted baby boomers adopt unified payment interface as a payment mechanism?: an exploration of drivers of behavioral intention

Purpose - The unified payment interface (UPI) is in its early stages of adoption for baby boomers. This study explores the factors affecting the behavioral intention of baby boomers to adopt UPI. UTAUT was adopted as theoretical lens of the study and extended with ubiquity, privacy risk and perceived security. The impact of an external factor – effect of COVID-19 was also examined in this study. Design/methodology/approach - A consumer intercept survey was used to collect data from baby boomers via a self-administered structured questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to establish the relationships among latent variables. Further, using bootstrap re-sampling technique, the role of perceived security as a mediator between risk, ubiquity and behavioral intention was examined. Findings - The study confirmed that COVID-19 was the most influential external factor for baby boomers to adopt UPI, followed by performance expectancy, social influence, ubiquity, effort expectancy and perceived security. Apropos of UPI adoption by baby boomers, privacy risk negatively influenced perceived security, whereas perceived security fully mediated the relationship between risk, ubiquity and behavioral intention. Research limitations/implications - The study focused only on baby boomers and their intention to adopt UPI. Hence the results cannot be generalized to all age groups and are specific to the cohort. Originality/value - The present study aims to establish research findings on predicting antecedents of adopting a newly introduced payment mechanism and an exemplary Indian digital innovation, UPI, by baby boomers. This study is first to empirically explore intention of baby boomers toward adoption of UPI.