Benefit–Risk Perceptions of FinTech Adoption for Sustainability from Bank Consumers’ Perspective: The Moderating Role of Fear of COVID-19

Abstract

Industry 4.0 technologies, designed to optimize efficiencies, are indisputable change
agents for sustainability. In the context of financial technology (FinTech), the burgeoning question
concerns how to create FinTech natives from the COVID-19-pandemic-induced adoption and realize
FinTech’s impact on sustainability? Thus, this study had the following purposes: (1) to examine
whether perceived benefits and risks affect FinTech services adoption; (2) to test the role of fear
of COVID-19 in FinTech adoption; and (3) to investigate whether FinTech adoption contributes to
sustainability. The hypotheses derived from the net valence framework, sustainable information
society theory, and protection motivation theory were tested using structural equation modeling
(SEM). Our online survey of bank consumers in Malaysia between December 2021 and February
2022 yielded 1279 usable questionnaires, randomly selected to generate 400 respondents. The results
revealed that: (1) the perceived benefits significantly influence FinTech adoption, whereas perceived
risk does not; (2) fear of COVID-19 moderates the perceived benefits–FinTech adoption relationship
and fully mediates the perceived risk–FinTech adoption relationship; and (3) FinTech adoption
significantly affects sustainability. This study demonstrates that FinTech adoption models must
exploit consumer sentiment (e.g., fear) to optimize FinTech’s benefits and risks, thereby creating
FinTech natives to realize its impacts on economic, environmental, and social sustainability