Identity Theft and Consumer Payment Choice: Does Security Really Matter?

Charles M. Kahn, José M. Liñares-Zegarra

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Security is a critical aspect of electronic payment systems. In recent years, the phenomenon of identity theft has gained widespread media coverage and has grown to be a major concern for payment providers and consumers alike. How identity theft has affected consumer’s payment choice is still an open research question. We use the 2009 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC) to study the effect of identity theft incidents on adoption and usage patterns for nine different payment instruments in the U.S. Our results suggest that certain types of identity theft incidents affect positively the probability of adopting money orders, credit cards, stored value cards, bank account number payments and online banking bill payments. As for payment usage, we find that particular types of identity theft incidents have a positive and statistically significant effect on the use of cash, money orders and credit cards and a negative and statistically significant effect on the use of checks and online banking bill payments. These results are robust across different types of transaction, after controlling for various socio-demographic characteristics and perceptions toward payment methods.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)121-159
Number of pages39
JournalJournal of Financial Services Research
Volume50
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 1 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Heckman selection model
  • Identity theft
  • Payment choice

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Accounting
  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics

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