Value added or overload? A study of the countervailing effects of non-core features on mobile banking apps

Mobile banking apps have begun to provide non-core functions to users, for example, mobile shopping, identifying nearby activities, and purchasing tickets as an innovation. Nevertheless, few studies have explored the negative impacts of this change (e.g., information overload and unfamiliarity associated with these new services). By developing and testing a research model with 422 questionnaires collected in China, this study aimed to examine users' psychological and behavioral aspects regarding the non-core features of mobile banking apps by considering two countervailing constructs: appreciation and fatigue. The results show that the non-core features of mobile banking apps affect the appreciation emotion positively and affect the fatigue emotion negatively. The different effects of the two opposing constructs on the using behavior are also discussed. This study identifies the partial complementary mediation role of lifestyle fit and function fit with the non-core features of mobile banking apps. By presenting the necessary condition analysis, this study contributes to identifying the necessary and sufficient effects of both lifestyle fit and function fit on users' using experience evaluation. The findings suggest that, in practice, non-core features of mobile banking apps can be used as a business strategy to influence users' choice in the mobile context.