The cross-cultural impact of mobile payment technology:Fingerprint scanning vs. QR-code scanning

Mobile payment is becoming increasingly popular among consumers, with convenient and more or less risky means of identification and authentication. This study aims to investigate the attitudinal and behavioural preferences for two mobile payment application technologies, namely fingerprint scanning and QR-code scanning. Specifically, a comparison is made of consumers from cultures with different levels of uncertainty avoidance. For this purpose, Asian and European consumers from China (N = 70) and the Netherlands (N = 110) participated in an online survey. The findings revealed that both cultural groups regularly used mobile payment technology, whereby they clearly preferred the fingerprint scan technology over QR-code scan technology. Some culture-related differences were found. The Chinese group had higher trust in fingerprint scan technology compared to the Dutch group. In addition to this, the Chinese had higher hedonic and utilitarian attitudes towards QR-scan technology compared to the Dutch.