Measuring perceived security in FinTech services: developing a dynamic scale

The last ten years have witnessed the rapid integration of financial technology (FinTech) with capital market infrastructure worldwide, providing substantial socioeconomic benefits. However, despite widespread recognition, the measurement of FinTech’s perceived security and adoption has received very little attention. To fill this gap, this study developed a continuum and multidimensional instrument to measure the complex, dynamic, and synergistic roles of perceived security issues in the adoption and utilization of FinTech services. Employing a rigorous five-stage scale development process, with samples from the U.S. and U.K. 1,377 FinTech users, and a novel methodological approach, exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) bifactor analysis, a five-dimensional FinTech Security Adoption Scale (FT-SAS) was developed. ESEM is an innovative statistical approach that combines statistical advances in Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling within a single analytical framework, thus providing a more flexible approach for assessing factorial structures. The results support the notion that the measurement of FinTech security follows an underlying continuum globally aligned with technology acceptance assumptions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to apply the bifactor-ESEM framework to the scientific literature on FinTech, thereby providing new theoretical and empirical avenues for financial information systems research.