Digital Payment Reliance and Consumer Behaviour Among Young Adults: Associations with Digital-Payment-Related Impulsive Spending, Convenience, Rewards, and Continued Usage Intention

Abstract

Digital payment systems have become embedded in everyday consumption, raising questions about their behavioural implications beyond technology adoption itself. This study examines how digital payment reliance, digital-payment-related impulsive spending, perceived convenience, perceived rewards, and continued usage intention relate to one another among young adults, using a quantitative, cross-sectional survey design. The analytical dataset comprised 135 primary cases, out of 157 eligible/complete cases, with 128 cases retained for a stricter sensitivity sample. Five four-item constructs were measured on five-point Likert scales. A confirmatory factor analysis supported convergent validity for all constructs (average variance extracted = .604-.860; composite reliability = .858-.961). Evidence for discriminant validity was mixed: all heterotrait-monotrait ratios were below .85, whereas the Fornell-Larcker criterion indicated insufficient separation between Reliance and both Convenience and Continued Usage. A Harman's single-factor test indicated that a dominant single-factor structure was not evident (47.5% variance on one unrotated factor). The three pre-specified hypotheses were tested primarily using Spearman's rank-order correlation, with Pearson correlations and alternative sample definitions used as robustness checks. Digital payment reliance was positively related to digital-payment-related impulsive spending (ρ = .250, p = .003, Holm-adjusted p = .010), although the relationship was weak. Perceived convenience showed a strong positive relationship with continued usage intention (ρ = .680, p < .001), while perceived rewards showed a moderate positive relationship with continued usage intention (ρ = .413, p < .001); together, convenience and rewards accounted for 57.4% of the observed variance in continued usage intention. Convenience emerged as the strongest correlate of continued digital-payment use, while reliance showed a smaller and less independent relationship with digital-payment-related impulsive spending. Because the design is cross-sectional and non-experimental, the findings are interpreted as associations rather than causal effects.