Purpose

This paper aims to assess whether the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has encouraged governments to take actions towards fostering digital means of payments and financial transactions to stimulate economic activities and achieve higher financial inclusion.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a logit model, this paper tests the impact of the level of income and GDP per capita, government effectiveness, digital adoption, number of commercial banks and the pandemic-related closure of business and stores due to full lockdowns on governments’ policy response regarding digital means of payments.

Findings

The author finds that low- and lower-middle-income countries had significantly responded to the surged need for digital means of payment during the pandemic compared to the upper-middle-income and high-income countries. The author also finds that government effectiveness and the number of commercial banks were predictors of government policy response, while the full lockdown of countries and the overall digital adoption were not.

Research limitations/implications

Data of the post-COVID-19 pandemic are limited, and the sample size is small.

Originality/value

This is the first paper to empirically model governments' response during the pandemic to promote digital means of payments. This paper gives insight into post-crisis potential changes in digital payment adoption in the upcoming years.

中文翻译：

---

各国在 COVID-19 期间在促进数字交易方面的成功程度

目的

本文旨在评估 2019 年冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 大流行是否鼓励政府采取行动，促进数字支付方式和金融交易，以刺激经济活动并实现更高的金融包容性。

设计/方法/方法

本文使用 logit 模型测试了收入水平和人均 GDP、政府效率、数字化采用、商业银行数量以及因政府全面封锁政策反应而导致的与大流行相关的业务和商店关闭的影响。数字支付方式。

发现

作者发现，与中高收入和高收入国家相比，低收入和中低收入国家在大流行期间对数字支付方式的需求激增做出了显着反应。作者还发现，政府效率和商业银行的数量是政府政策反应的预测因素，而国家的全面封锁和整体数字化采用则不是。

研究限制/影响

COVID-19 后大流行的数据有限，样本量小。

原创性/价值

这是第一篇对政府在大流行期间为推广数字支付方式的反应进行实证建模的论文。本文深入了解了未来几年数字支付采用的危机后潜在变化。