Perception on Credit Cards for E-Payments in E-Government Service in Sri Lanka

Abstract

n competitive and complicated context, people look for quick, short and quality services. Government as well needs to provide competitive services by integrating new technologies. In an e-government, a solid and trusted environment is a pre-requisite to ensure the trustworthiness of the payee for the paying bills especially utilities, in foster payment especially through electronic media. The expansion of the Internet has facilitated the attractiveness of this payment instrument. E-commerce and e-government have created new financial needs that in many cases cannot be effectively fulfilled by traditional payment systems. There are plenty of electronic payment systems. Among them, credit card has popularized for paying bills in Sri Lanka. The research question is 'Are there any potential to use these trends as an imperative means for e-payments in an e-government services in Sri Lanka?' The paper aims to examine perception of credit cardholders on using credit cards for e-payment in e-government services through an exploratory inquiry. The literature related to the present investigation is used to develop a framework for the study. Data was collected from a sample of 150 credit card holders in Colombo district and used quantitative method. Result reveals that behavioural elements of credit card holder's perception on credit card for e-payment have significant influence on their perception about e-payment through credit cards. Sri Lanka is moving toward greater e-government adoption interestingly. Accordingly e-payment means also should be taken into consideration, majority of online population in Sri Lanka is yet considered "infants" with a shallow level of Internet knowledge, and this builds up fear of using e-payment. Results of the present study evident that there is a positive trend towards the perception of using credit cards as a mean for e-payment in e-government services. There are substantial potentials to encourage and further improvements of e-government concept in Sri Lanka.