Looking for Strategies to Re-launch Retail Banking: The Mobile Payment Ecosystem

The mobile payments service includes all theinitiatives that enable payments or money transfer by cellularphone, regardless of the means of payment used (credit-debitprepaidcards, phone bill) and the technology involved (remotepayment via internet, contactless payments at a POS or directremittance by cellphones). The industry of mobile paymentstoday is still in a start-up phase and the nature and extend ofapproaches to these innovations are not uniform around theworld and inside the same countries. The way and the intensity itwill be widespread in the market is going to depend on theecosystems that would be designed and developed. As for thispurpose, the scope of the article is first to highlight the mainvariables enabling or limiting its diffusion in the market. Andsecondly it is to highlight why retail banks should enter themobile ecosystem mainly to regain their key role in the market asthey had in the past

Financial Services Innovation: Opportunities for Transformation Through Facial Recognition and Digital Wallet Patents

Bringing innovation to the marketplace for new products and services involves creativity, a culture in which change flourishes, and leadership that thrives on transformation and complexity. This study explored the potential for market disruption or change based on innovations involving patents granted to nonfinancial services organizations that could affect financial services, specifically consumer or retail bank products. It involved analyzing documents related to recently granted patents and completing a mixed methods survey integrating the Delphi research technique. This method required multiple iterations of a survey presented to expert panelists or industry thought leaders to attempt to gain consensus ( Consensus , 2011) or general agreement by the group (Tersine & Riggs, 1976). With this research method, the goal is to gain an understanding of initial individual perspectives. Through an iterative process, then determine if, as a group, they can move toward a common vision of what is likely to happen after viewing other\u27s perspectives. This research was specific to two innovations for which patents have been granted: facial recognition and digital wallets. Patents can provide insights into potential new developments planned by organizations. In some cases, patents can provide insights into innovation, potential threats, opportunities, or disruptions that could change the way a market operates. The goal of this research was to select two recent patents from many that have been granted, develop theoretical insights, and, through a mixed methods survey integrating the Delphi methodology, identify when or if these patents could have an impact on financial services. This research brought together thought leaders in an anonymous, collaborative approach to assess considerations and provide their perspective on these changes. This study served to help leaders drive innovation in financial services organizations and to understand how others perceive these innovations. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.etd.ohiolink.ed

Emerging technologies for learning (volume 1)

Collection of 5 articles on emerging technologies and trend

Mobile banking and mobile payment acceptance

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Information Management, specialization in Information and Decision SystemsTechnological advancements registered in the last three decades have revolutionized the financial industry, promoting major changes in the financial services provided. The spread of Internet-enabled phones, smart phones and tablets combined with fast and reliable communications networks, have encourage banks and service providers to provide a new set of self-service banking applications to mobile devices. These facts combined with the globalisation of business and systems are reinforcing the need to acquire a deeper understand on the impact of the acceptance of mobile services. With this dissertation we intend to contribute to a better understanding of the determinants of mobile banking and mobile payments services acceptance and use, at individual level. For this reason we developed a total of five different studies; four about mobile banking and one about the mobile payment. We started in chapter two with a mobile banking literature weight and meta-analysis. The impact of culture in the mobile banking acceptance in an African developing country is analysed in chapter three, trying to better identify how culture influences individual use behaviour. In chapter four we study the mobile payment, trying to identify the direct and indirect effects on the determinants of adoption and the intention to recommend this technology. In chapter five we return to mobile banking, intending to identify the potential impact of the utilization of game mechanics and game design techniques in the acceptance of these services. In the fifth and last study, presented in chapter six, we analyse data from three different countries in three distinct continents, combining acceptance with trust and risk, simultaneously capturing success and resistance factors towards mobile banking intention and use behaviour. In epistemological terms, we adopted a posture characteristic of positivism. With regard the theoretical framework, besides the weight and meta-analysis study, we use the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) (Venkatesh et al., 2012) in all the studies; namely combining it with (i) cultural moderators (Hofstede, 1980) in the third chapter, (ii) the innovation characteristics of the diffusion of innovations (DOI) (Rogers, 2003), the perceived technology security, and the intention to recommend constructs in the fourth chapter, (iii) a gamification impact construct in the fifth chapter, and (iv) trust and risk model (Bélanger & Carter, 2008) in the sixth chapter. This work provides several contributions for research and practice, contributing to the advancement of knowledge, exploring and discussing direct implications for banks, financial institutions, service providers, service managers, IT and marketing departments, users, and researchers. The innovative models that we use in our work combine the strengths and constructs from well-known theoretical models, providing a solid foundation to our studies. In summary, considering all studies and datasets used, the intention best drivers were (i) habit, found significant in three studies and five datasets and (ii) performance expectancy, found significant in all five studies and in six datasets, and in the use best drivers were (i) habit, found significant in three studies and five datasets and (ii) intention, found significant in two studies. Considering the studies individually, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, short term, and power distance were found to be the most significant cultural moderators, providing new insights into factors affecting the acceptation and how culture influences individual use behaviour. In terms of mobile payment, the relevance of customer’s intention to recommend mobile payment technology in social networks and other means of communication was confirmed, supporting the recommendation to include it in social marketing campaigns and in future technology adoption studies. A direct and strong relationship between gamification and intention was also confirmed, showing that, when used and designed properly, gamification can help make banking activities more exciting, more interesting, and more enjoyable, and in turn increase customer acceptance, engagement and satisfaction. From the multi-group analysis between countries additional results were found, supporting services customization and marketing campaigns adaptations accordingly. For the intention to use mobile banking, (i) performance expectancy is a more important factor for Portuguese than Brazilian users, (ii) hedonic motivation is a more important factor for Mozambican users than Portuguese or Brazilian ones, and (iii) price value is significant and more important for Mozambican than Portuguese users. For the use behaviour, (i) behavioural intention is a more important factor for Mozambican than Portuguese or Brazilian users and (ii) the facilitating conditions is a more important factor for Mozambican than Portuguese or Brazilian users. A theoretical model based in the best intention and use predictors found in literature is presented, from the weight and meta-analysis’ results, supporting further and future studies in this area

Ubiquitous Technology for Lifelong Learners

Nowadays, most people change their career throughout their lives, many times independently on what they learned during their formal education period. Therefore, the necessity to continually keep our skills sharp and up-to-date becomes increasingly important in a rapidly changing job market. The European Commission stressed the importance of lifelong learning as a key challenge for the knowledge society to adapt to the pace in which digital technology is transforming every aspect of people’s lives. Later on, the Commission published a reference framework comprising eight competences to flexibly adapt to a rapidly changing and highly interconnected world. In this thesis, we aim at supporting learners to understand the way they can better learn in-context using technology, therefore we focus on two specific competences, namely, learning to learn and digital competence

NFC technology in the implementation of voting system

The thesis discusses the use of NFC (Near Field Communication) technology and presents the use of modern online and mobile technologies which can improve the performance of public and private voting. The problem of identifying the participating people is carried out using NFC mobile devices. To perform the voting we constructed web and mobile application. The web application is designed in the Django Web Framework, which keeps the necessary information by means of a relational database management SQLite. The mobile app is designed for NFC device, powered by the Android operating system. Featured is the process of creating and editing vote, authorization to accede to vote and voice broadcast. In connection with the mobile application, is introduced Android Beam, which is used for the identification of users