Abstract
Mobile payment services are commonly promoted as convenient, fast, and secure alternatives to cash and cards, yet the availability of technology does not guarantee its acceptance. This article revisits qualitative evidence on resistance to mobile payments through the Innovation Resistance Theory (IRT), with particular attention to the interaction between functional and psychological barriers. The underlying study involved ten Libyan adults aged 20–35 who did not use mobile payments. Interview accounts were thematically analysed and organised around five IRT barriers: usage, value, risk, tradition, and image. The reported themes indicate that non-adoption was associated with uncertain merchant acceptance, limited knowledge of service features, fragmented payment applications, weakly perceived advantages, security and privacy concerns, dependence on a functioning mobile device, established payment habits, and uncertainty about providers’ data practices. Social approval also appeared to influence willingness to try unfamiliar services. The article’s contribution is interpretive rather than statistical: it shows how barriers reinforce one another, making resistance a reasoned response to uncertainty rather than simply a deficit in technological awareness. For providers, merchants, and regulators, the findings support coordinated action on interoperability, transparent security communication, accessible consumer education, and visible dispute-resolution mechanisms. Because the evidence is based on a small, purposively selected sample, the findings should be treated as context-sensitive insights, not as estimates of the prevalence of resistance among all Libyan consumers.
