Driving growth of Mwallets in emerging markets: a retailer's perspective

The technology growth and evolving customer expectations in emerging markets have led firms to search for strategic tools to engage customers. The digital payment industry has seen the emergence of a new mobile-based service called Mwallet: a digital version of a physical wallet. Although there has been excitement, firms lack guidance regarding leveraging the potential of Mwallets. Relying on the extant literature, industry reports, and a qualitative study, we investigate the strategic potential of Mwallets for retailers. We develop a research framework and provide multiple research propositions linking Mwallet integration to customer engagement (CE) and discussing the moderating effects of market, firm, and customer-related factors. We find that Mwallet integration will have an S-shaped relationship with CE. An initial empirical investigation provides evidence for the effect of Mwallet on CE. This research is the first step towards linking Mwallet to a retailer's performance; it demonstrates academic and managerial relevance.