Understanding the intention to use mobile banking by existing online banking customers: an empirical study

The Indian banking sector can take advantage of the proliferation of smartphones as well as the government’s encouragement of cashless transactions to accelerate the use of mobile and online banking. The purpose of this study is to understand the initial acceptance of mobile banking by existing online banking users. Few studies have focused on online banking users’ behavioural intention to use similar services (such as mobile banking) in India. To this end, a theoretical model was developed using the technology acceptance model, which was extended to cover the adoption factors that influence users of online banking to use mobile banking. These adoption factors comprise perceived ease of use, perceived security, mobile self-efficacy, social influence and customer support. The dependent variable is customers’ behavioural intention to use mobile banking. A partial least squares structural equation modelling analysis was used to test the theoretical model with sample data from 420 online banking customers of various public, private, foreign and co-operative banks in India. The study found that the adoption factors had a significant impact on customers’ behavioural intention to use mobile banking. The findings of this study provide insight into digital banking channels, contribute to existing research on digital banking adoption and will educate banks and financial institutions on the adoption of mobile banking in India.

     

Customer account relationships and e-retail banking usage<Superscript>1</Superscript>

Financial institutions are actively developing new electronic banking products for their retail customers. To date, the market leaders have drawn a disproportionably higher share of e-retail banking customers. In response, smaller institutions have become quite active in exploring ways to participate profitably in online banking. A major influence is from a customer relationship management (CRM) perspective, where institutions try to limit the outflow of current customers and direct high-value customers to potential products from a multi-product service offering array. These efforts can succeed only if retail bank marketers focus the promotion of the new products and services that can utilise this channel toward those customers who are most likely to find them attractive. The first aim of this study was to examine the role that online and electronic banking play in defining the customer's primary financial relationship. The analysis of 701 retail customers of a financial institution presented in this study suggests that banks and other institutions are highly vulnerable to loss of customers to rivals with extensive online services. A second aim was to examine to what extent information on banking relationships is able to extend CRM analysis beyond that offered by typical demographic and income data. Current customer account relationships are found to be highly predictive of use of electronic services use in general. And, interest in the use of specific online services is related to differing customer relationships in addition to ordinary demographic and balance information. These findings can be useful for retail banking in identifying potential high-value users from a customer relationship management perspective.     

Bank image in the UAE: Comparing Islamic and conventional banks

This study investigates how bank customers in the UAE view Islamic banks versus conventional banks and whether this image affects customer loyalties or selection of a bank. We distributed a questionnaire to a convenient sample of UAE bank customers that focused on five areas: bank image, bank products, service quality, cultural aspects and religious factors, in addition to demographic attributes of the sample. The main findings of this study are: first, most UAE bank customers prefer banking with Islamic banks, although they are not satisfied with the quality of products and services; second, customers generally have a positive image of whatever bank they dealt with; third, the regression analysis results indicate that the most important factor in choosing a bank was bank products followed by service quality and then religious factors; fourth, there is a significant difference between how customers perceive UAE Islamic banks versus conventional banks; fifth, there is a significant difference in how customers perceive UAE Islamic banks based on their gender, education and duration of the relationship; and finally, there is a significant difference in how customers perceive UAE conventional banks based on their gender.     

Customers’ dissatisfaction with banking channels and their intention to leave banks: The moderating effect of trust and trusting beliefs

Banks have the challenging task of managing customer experience across many traditional and technological channels in today’s financial services world. Recent studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that many customers are dissatisfied with their experiences across channels that are supposed to provide a seamless experience. This customer dissatisfaction potentially diminishes a financial service organization’s customer base, and requires the firm to rely on a more fickle customer mix and erodes its reputation. This paper investigates the relationship between individuals’ dissatisfaction with their primary bank channel and their intention to leave their bank in the future. The first study examines individuals’ overall trust in their bank as a potential moderator in the relationship that reduces customers’ likelihood to leave the bank even though they are dissatisfied with a particular banking channel. The second study goes one step further and examines the effect of three trusting beliefs about the bank potentially held by the customer: competence, integrity, and benevolence beliefs. Findings indicate that when customers have a high level of trust in their banks, they are less likely to leave their banks even though they are dissatisfied with their primary banking channel. Furthermore, while competence and benevolence beliefs about the bank have a similar moderating effect, integrity beliefs do not.     

Marketing online banking services: The voice of the customer

US banks have invested heavily in developing online capabilities, with the expectation of migrating customers to the new cheaper delivery system. Results in the USA thus far have been mixed at best; market penetration is low and customer usage is sporadic, focusing mainly on simple tasks. This paper reports on the first of two studies conducted to investigate the reasons for the mediocre performance. A qualitative consumer study revealed significant differences in attitudes and opinions between early users and those that banks hope will adopt next. Most importantly, future prospects could be characterised as indifferent about online banking; many were not convinced about its benefits and the value it provides. While the potential to expand the market for online banking services exists, banks need to re-examine their marketing approach.     

Contact management and customer loyalty

This paper is concerned with examining how contact management influences customer loyalty in the retail banking industry. The concept of contact management is explored and developed with reference to the literature on retention, service quality and loyalty. Customer experiences with contacting their bank and their intentions were obtained by means of an online survey, in which consumers were asked about their points of contact with their banks and their intentions to continue their custom and make recommendations. The findings of the survey suggest that contact management plays a significant role in customers' stated intentions. The study concludes that banks and building societies need to manage customer contacts to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction levels and so that loyalty is strengthened.     

An empirical investigation of the relative effect of trust and switching costs on service loyalty in the UK retail banking industry

The crisis in the UK financial services industry has led to retail banking customers treating transactions with growing scepticism. Retail banks are having to work very hard to regain customer trust. Despite recent research in marketing that acknowledges the importance of service loyalty to service firms, studies that have examined the relative effects of trust and the different types of switching costs on attitudinal and behavioural loyalty are scant. Therefore this article aims to build a model to examine the strength of the relationships between these constructs. Using survey data collected from a convenience sample of 290 retail banking customers in the United Kingdom, the article reveals that the main drivers of attitudinal loyalty are trust and relational switching costs. In contrast, the main drivers of behavioural loyalty are trust, relational switching costs and attitudinal loyalty. Interestingly, financial and procedural switching costs exert no significant effect on either attitudinal or behavioural loyalty. Trust and relational switching costs exert a stronger effect on attitudinal than behavioural loyalty.     

Adoption of digital banking channels in an emerging economy: exploring the role of in-branch efforts

The aim of this qualitative study is to analyse the role of in-branch efforts of banks on migrating customers from branch banking to digital banking in India. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with bank executives representing senior management from public and private sector banks in India. Qualitative content analysis technique was used to analyse the data. Varieties of responses received during interviews were clubbed into four main themes based on data reduction, display, and conclusion-drawing processes. In-branch communication with customers, digital transformation of the branch, customer-centric initiatives, and redefined role of branch staff hold the potential to bridge the customers’ migration to digital banking. The paper suggests that the key identified factor in improving digital banking acceptance in India is the requirement of integrated cultural and organisational changes at the bank’s level to gain the customers’ confidence and trust in digital banking.

     

The impact of brand experience,service quality and perceived value on word of mouth of retail bank customers: investigating the mediating effect of loyalty

The purpose of this research is to study the impact of the antecedents—brand experience, service quality, and perceived value on word of mouth (WOM) recommendations by retail banking customers in an emerging market. The paper also investigates the mediating effect of loyalty on WOM with respect to the abovementioned antecedents. A survey of 412 retail customers of various banks in India was undertaken using a structured questionnaire developed using existing constructs. The results show that brand experience, service quality, and perceived value have a significant impact on WOM recommendations of customers of retail banks. Further, the relationships between the abovementioned antecedents and WOM are mediated by loyalty. This study makes several contributions to the academic literature. First, it establishes the importance of brand experience, service quality, and perceived value as antecedents of WOM in the context of retail banks in an emerging market. Second, it also establishes that loyalty plays a mediating role for the abovementioned antecedents for WOM recommendations by retail customers of banks in an emerging market.     

Promotional messages in multichannel banking: Attractive or annoying?

Financial service providers possess a great deal of information about their customers. Customer information is used to serve customers and deliver the right messages to the right customer groups. Owing to the nature of financial services – that is, the need for credibility, long-term commitment and involvement of sensitive personal information – the planning and implementation of suitable marketing is extremely important. Financial services are offered through multiple channels, but electronic channels have increased in importance both for customer acquisition and retention purposes. In addition, electronic channels offer personalization possibilities that did not exist before. In this study, we examine, with the help of electronic focus group interviews, the kind of channels customers prefer when promotional messages include different types of personalization. In addition, the acceptance of promotional messages in the online banking context is explored. The results indicate that the channel preferences of customers diverge depending on the type of personalization used in the message. Furthermore, based on the opinions of customers concerning several authentic online banners, a personalization matrix was developed. The findings show that preference-matching personalization with informative content is accepted by the majority of customers. The article offers financial managers new perspectives on bank marketing in general, and online bank marketing in particular.     

Consumer satisfaction and loyalty derived from the perceived quality of individual banking services: A field study in Eskişehir from Turkey

The research project intends to find out the differences in the quality of the services rendered by the national banks of Turkey as perceived by the bank customers. This paper is an academically held field research conducted in May 2000 in the city of Eski?ehir Turkey, covering 1340 respondents who are regular bank customers, that is, who carry out banking transactions more than once in a month. These banks are all well-known, nation-wide financial institutions publicly or privately owned and are classified under three main groups depending on their ownership style and their size. Respondents are selected systematically from different age groups, income groups, and occupations reflecting both sexes. A questionnaire form included ten close-end multiple-choice questions (excluding demographic questions) is designed for the research purpose     

Internet banking in the UK: Why are there not more customers?

Despite the increase in the number of internet users recorded by various agencies, the level of increase of internet usage for banking purposes has not increased at the same rate. One reason for this is continuing consumer fear about security which, despite the media coverage and the technical and verbal reassurances provided by the banks, still preys heavily on consumers' minds. Trying to resolve security fears is perceived to be part of the overall service to customers provided by the internet banking service providers. However, customers are continuing to demand increased levels of service quality. The research described in this paper attempted to identify whether or not specific problem areas exist for UK banks in achieving satisfactory performance on key attributes of service quality, particularly security, as perceived by a sample of UK internet banking customers. Using trade-off analysis to interview 56 internet banking customers, five key service quality attributes were identified and ranked. Cluster analysis was then adopted and revealed two groups of respondents. One group was most concerned about security-related issues while the other group was more interested in the convenience, speed and timeliness of the service. Overall, the internet banks were rated as being good on the five attributes except for the attribute ‘product variety/diverse features’. The question that arises from the findings is whether or not good performance by the internet banks on the service quality decision criteria is sufficient in a highly competitive internet environment, not only to attract new customers, but also to retain existing ones.     

A structural equation modelling of the antecedents of relationship quality in the Malaysia banking sector

The intense competition among firms in the new global environment has made it inevitable for firms to seek ways to create and maintain quality relationship with customers, and Malaysia banks are no exception. However, little is understood from empirical viewpoint about the antecedents of relationship quality specifically, the actual influence of overall customer satisfaction and its indicators. Based on data collected from 220 customers of 15 retail banks in Malaysia and analysed using the structural equation modelling technique, findings are that overall customer satisfaction is a key determinant of relationship quality. The indicators of customer satisfaction include trust, commitment, communication, service quality, service satisfaction and conflict handling. These results are not confounded by any service differential among the participating banks. Important theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.     

A comparison of conventional versus Islamic banking customers attitudes and judgment

This investigates the impact of customer attitude and judgment regarding conventional and Islamic banking system in Pakistan. This study attempts to find out, how the customers of Islamic banks perceive about Islamic banking practices in terms of Shariah compliance and conventional banking system regarding earning more profits. This study consists on primary data through a well design questionnaire. Four hundred and thirty (430) questionnaires were distributed among different customers of all three types of banking, such as Islamic, conventional and stand-alone branches in order to investigate customer’s attitude and judgment toward banking system. The findings indicate that overall 28% of Islamic banking customers don’t know the essential concept of Islamic financial institution’s in Pakistan. Furthermore, 54% customers of conventional banking show their interest to convert their accounts toward Islamic banks.

     

Customer experience in omni-channel banking services

The banking industry is experiencing rapid and widespread changes due to advances in technology that go hand-in-hand with the customer demands for real-time, personalized and seamless banking experience. Along with this development, omni-channel orientation is becoming an inherent feature of banking services. However, its role has not yet been thoroughly understood, specifically in this context. The purpose of this study is to create in-depth understanding of how do customers experience omni-banking services and what are the key factors related to their experiences. We identify both actual critical events and imaginings, positive and negative that are related to the forming of customer experiences and suggest both theoretical and managerial implications based on the results.     

Switching customers from branches to internet: A credit union's journey

This research paper reports how a credit union applied knowledge from the literature to solve a marketing problem. A credit union serves a unique group of customers who may be in the same profession, have the same employer, or simply in the same regional location. The marketing problem is how to switch bank customers from branches to internet for the main reason of reducing transaction costs. The research model comprises the independent factors of customer, transaction, application, and bank; and the dependent variables the number of internet banking transaction, perceived usefulness of internet banking, and willingness to use internet banking measuring different aspects of internet banking. We carried out an on-site survey in different branches of our subject credit union to capture the opinion of customers who rely solely on branches for banking transactions. To our knowledge, this study provides a pioneer internet banking survey in the context of credit unions. The survey results reveal different internet banking facilitators for customers with and without internet bank accounts. For customers with internet bank accounts, application security is the most important facilitator variable for them to continue its use in the future; while promises for continuous improvement can be a prohibitive variable. In order to encourage customers without internet bank accounts to adopt internet banking, the management should focus on strengthening the variables of bank diversified service, bank responsiveness, bank image, and extra online instruction and feedback for complicate internet transactions; and reducing the negative effect of web fun/entertainment. We also found that the variables of proficiency in using computers, application security, and bank image have opposite effects on customers with and without internet bank accounts.     

Strategic online banking adoption

In this paper we study the determinants of banks’ decisions to adopt a transactional website for their customers. Using a panel of commercial banks in the United States for the period 2003–2006, we show that although bank-specific characteristics are important determinants of banks’ adoption decisions, competition also plays a prominent role. The extent of competition is related to the geographic overlap of banks in different markets and their relative market share in terms of deposits. In particular, banks adopt online banking services earlier in markets where their competitors have already adopted this technology. This paper is one of the first to construct local banking markets using the geographic market definitions delimited by the CASSIDI® Database compiled at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.     

Supermarket branch banks and traditional banks: An evaluation of differences in employees' attitudes regarding product offerings,job satisfaction and turnover

Traditionally, banking was an activity conducted primarily in an environment in which employees were housed in a central location. In this environment, the bank culture was relatively stable and well-known to customers and employees alike. Further, both the public and the market knew the bank's financial service offerings. The advent of the supermarket branch bank has created challenges for both employees and managers. Many employees are no longer under the direct supervision of bank management. The culture of the branch bank may be vague, and with this change in culture and in supervision, problems with consistency and quality of banking services may exist. Additionally, banks may experience challenges in terms of job satisfaction, turnover and perceptions of product offerings at the supermarket branch bank and at the traditional brick-and-mortar bank. This research evaluates these environmental changes in terms of their impact on the employees' perceptions of customer attitudes regarding branch and brick-and-mortar bank offerings. This research also assesses the employees' perceptions of job satisfaction and turnover at branch versus traditional banks.     

Customer readiness to co-production of mobile banking services: a customer-only co-production perspective

This paper aimed to identify the antecedents and corollary of customer readiness for co-production in customer-only co-production services using mobile banking services as a context. Using a structured questionnaire, data were gathered from a sample of mobile banking customers in Ghana and the UK and the data analysis was facilitated by structural equation modelling. From the findings, the antecedents were customer socialisation, customer self-efficacy and customer motivation and the corollary was service productivity. The findings provide managers of customer-only co-production or technology-based services particularly mobile banking services with the specific factors that can be managed strategically and tactically to enhance customer readiness for co-production and service productivity. This study is one of a kind to conceptualise and empirically identify the antecedents and corollary of customer readiness for co-production within the customer-only co-production context. However, as the study was limited to mobile banking services, future studies might test the research model in other customer-only technology-based services.