To Örebro University

With the rise of financial technology (Fintech), businesses are increasingly adopting Cashless Payment Systems (CPS) to enhance transaction efficiency and effectiveness. This study compares the factors influencing retailers’ adoption of CPS in Sweden and South Africa, analyzing both similarities and differences across these distinct contexts. Using an interpretive comparative analysis approach, the study applies qualitative thematic analysis to 28 semi-structured interviews conducted with retailers from both countries. From the analysis, we generated 5 key themes: cost implications and financial challenges, convenience and efficiency, regulatory compliance and standards, trust and security perceptions, and infrastructure and accessibility. The findings indicate that context-specific environments shape retailers’ CPS adoption decisions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to compare CPS adoption among retailers in Sweden and South Africa. The study provides valuable insights for policymakers, regulators, payment service providers, and other stakeholders seeking to promote CPS adoption among retailers. It highlights the need for a multi-faceted approach and context-appropriate interventions to support this cashless transition effectively, from retailers’ perspective.

While much research has focused on consumer and technological aspects of cashless payment systems, fewer studies address this topic from the merchants’ perspective. This study examines the factors influencing merchants’ adoption of cashless payment systems using the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework. Through a systematic review of 33 relevant studies, it synthesizes key insights into how technological factors (e.g., compatibility, perceived usefulness, and security), organizational factors (e.g., knowledge and skills, cost and revenue, merchant background, and perceived trust), and environmental factors (e.g., customer demand, competitive pressure, policies, and regulations) shape merchants’ adoption decisions. This paper highlights the interrelated nature of these factors, providing a holistic understanding of cashless payment systems adoption. Using the TOE framework, this review categorizes internal and external influences while offering theoretical insights into their complex interplay across contexts. The findings are valuable for businesses, regulators, payment service providers, and payment infrastructure developers seeking to promote cashless payment adoption among merchants.

Retail merchants play a central role in driving the shift towards cashless payments. They operate within an interconnected cashless payment ecosystem, interacting directly with other actors through collaboration and competition. This study examines retail merchants’ interactions with other participants in the ecosystem, focusing on the concept of coopetition—a combination of cooperation and competition. We conducted a qualitative reflexive thematic analysis of 15 semi-structured interviews with retail merchants in Sweden. The analysis yielded five themes: Harmonizing for optimal integration, strategizing cost efficiency, balancing reliability and risk management, aligning with consumer preferences and market dynamics, and managing the evolution of payment technologies. The study contributes to the existing literature by offering a rich contextual description of retail merchants’ interaction within the cashless payment ecosystem. It highlights the importance of coopetitive interactions for retail merchants to enhance their payment operations, stay competitive, and respond to market and technological changes. These insights can guide retail merchants and other actors in optimizing their strategies for successfully implementing cashless payment systems. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

Sweden is practically becoming a cashless society and possesses a clear sign of future competitiveness in cashless payment which has a wider impact on businesses and society at large. However, according to the existing research, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of how this cashless society has shaped up and how such competitiveness can be sustained over time. There has been much research on consumer adoption of cashless payment systems, but the research on adoption by merchants is scant. Thus, considering the critical role they play in the cashless payment ecosystem, this study aims to understand the factors influencing the adoption of cashless payment systems from Swedish merchants’ perspective. The study used qualitative thematic analysis to identify seven factors: convenience, cost, trust, risks, norm, regulation, and customer preference. The findings contribute to limited knowledge of cashless payment systems in the context of Sweden and can be transferable to other countries.

The interplay between finance and technology with the use of the internet triggered the emergence of digital payment technologies. Such technological innovation in the payment industry is the foundation for financial inclusion. However, despite the continuous progress and potential of moving the payment landscape towards digital payments and connecting the population to the ubiquitous digital environment, some critical issues need to be addressed to achieve a more harmonious inclusive and sustainable cashless society. The study aims to provide a comprehensive literature review on the emerging digital payment technologies and associated challenges. By systematically reviewing existing empirical studies, this study puts forward the state-of-the-art classification of digital payment technologies and presents four categories of digital payment technologies: card payment, e-payment, mobile payment and cryptocurrencies. Subsequently, the paper presents the key challenges in digital payment technologies categorized into broad themes: social, economic, technical, awareness and legal. The classification and categorization of payment technologies and associated challenges can be useful to both researchers and practitioners to understand, elucidate and develop a coherent digital payment strategy.

Cashless payments have become increasingly popular around the world because of their numerous advantages. Moreso, the cashless payment adoption has been escalated during the theCovid-19 pandemic. However, there is a lack of holistic studies on the adoption and contemporary practices of cashless payments. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to provide a comprehensive understanding by identifying the participating actors and their crucial role in the payment ecosystem. Thus, the paper aims to address two research questions: i) Who are the participating actors in the cashless payment ecosystem? and ii)What are the determinant factors for the actors to adopt the cashless payment ecosystem? Through scoping literature review of 63 articles published in the last seven years (2015-2021), six participating ecosystem actors are identified with their determinant factors. The study contributes toward addressing adoption issues and serves as a basis for future empirical investigation.

Structuration Theory (ST) is increasingly used in the field of Information Systems (IS) and has been widely cited by IS researchers. However, despite the widespread use of ST in IS research, there is a lack of systematic literature reviews on the application of ST in the IS research domain. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to review how ST has been applied in IS research focusing more on the core ST concepts applied in the studies. A systematic review of 33 empirical IS papers published in the last seven years (2015–2021) informs that ST has been used as a theoretical lens by applying general and selective structural concepts. It is also found that a good number of studies have applied ST in combination with other theories to complement as well as extend the theoretical perspectives. Most studies empirically applied the IS-specific version of ST, the Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST), to analyse the IS phenomena. This review also presents the six most used core ST concepts in the reviewed papers. Overall, the paper contributes to offering a better understanding about the application of ST in the IS as a social practice and provides state-of-the-art insights on the structural concepts used in the empirical IS research.

Preserving the confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA) of an organisation's sensitive information systems assets against attacks and threats is a challenge in this digital age. Or-ganisations worldwide make huge investments in information security technological coun-termeasures. Nonetheless, organisations in many cases fail to protect their information as-sets as they rely mainly on technical solutions which are not contextually compatible and sufficient. As a matter of fact, a significant number of organisational information security in-cidents are due to the exploitation of human elements that directly and/or indirectly cause the majority of security incidents. Therefore, employees' information security awareness (ISA) becomes one of the critical aspects of protection against undesirable information se-curity behaviours. However, to date, there is limited synthesised knowledge about methods for enhancing ISA and integrated insights on factors affecting employees' ISA levels. This study, therefore, provides a systematic review of the literature on ISA and puts forward a state-of-the-art collection of ISA methods and factors for enhancing employees' ISA within both private and public sector organisations. The results indicate that various methods and factors are used to enhance employees' ISA in organisations. Theoretical models and gami-fication are the methods widely used in both private and public organisations, whereas the constructivist approach and violation detections are some of the methods used only in pri-vate organisations. Furthermore, this study offers some insights into the latest trends in ISA content development methods and factors, and fosters good ISA practice by disseminating information and knowledge amongst Information Security professionals to help them build an overarching ISA development programme in their organisations.