Effects of E-Banking Adoption on the Financial Performance of State-Owned Commercial Banks in Bangladesh

Introduction

Over the past decades, the incredible development in information communication technology (ICT) has expanded the door of opportunities (Chege et al., 2020; Hsu et al., 2020) and changed business environments around the world (Sivathanu, 2019; Ananth & Singh, 2016). The literature (Al-Omoush et al., 2020; Al-Swidi & Al-Hosam, 2012) suggests that ICT-based operations and service offerings are crucial for an efficient business strategy and, therefore, information communication technology (ICT)-enabled banking operations should be adopted and implemented in banks to ensure sustainable growth of the banking sector (Al-Omoush et al., 2020). To keep pace with the modernization of organizations, the banking sector has also embraced the development in innovation and its implementation that led to the transformation of banking operations from a manual system to a technology-based digital banking system around the world (Aduda & Kingoo, 2012). As a result, ICT-based banking operations, popularly known as electronic banking or e-banking (Salehi & Alipour, 2010), are being considered as the heart of the banking sector in the contemporary banking world (Al-Omoush et al., 2020; Aliyu & Tasmin, 2012).

The concept of digital banking or electronic banking (e-banking) is a relatively new practice in Bangladesh, since the technology infrastructural development is still under development. In Bangladesh, the banks began implementing electronic banking systems in 2001 (Rahman, 2007). Before that time, the banking sector was operated completely under the analog system (Siddik et al., 2016) where all bank transactions and activities were accomplished manually, which was time-consuming, tiresome, and required a significant workforce to carry out the operations. In fact, Bangladesh was behind in taking advantage of the enormous opportunities that has arisen from technology-based business operations such as e-commerce and e-business (Ahmed & Islam, 2008). However, the banks in Bangladesh, both the private and public (state-owned) sector banks, have started adopting ICT-based e-banking operations in the last few years (Hasan et al., 2010). Past studies revealed that various exogenous and endogenous factors, for example, customer retention, better service offerings, and overall performance improvement, led the organizations to adopt and utilize the technology (Hosain & Azam, 2019; Azam, 2014). Kondabagil (2007) also opined that not unlik other organizations, the e-banking adoption decision of the banks are determined by perceived benefits (for example, improved performance, customer retention, competitive costs, etc.) of the systems. Therefore, it is crucial to measure the bank’s performance under the adoption of e-banking to monitor the actual and potential progress of existing and potential adopters of e-banking systems since the improved performance enhances the likelihood of organizations’ technology adoption decisions (Azam, 2014).

Commercial banks play a crucial role in the emerging economies more than that of developed economies and, therefore, studying the progress of commercial bank performance has attracted the bulk of researchers’ attention (Gafoor et al., 2018; Siddik et al., 2016) from an emerging economy perspective. The attributes, operational practices, and performance of financial markets and banking systems significantly differ from developed economies to developing economies. For example, developed economies encompass strong and sound financial markets and banking systems, whereas developing economies posit undersized and inefficient financial markets and banking systems (Siddik et al., 2016).

There is little evidence focusing on technology-based banking system adoption, utilization, and effects thereafter in the context of Bangladesh (Hasan et al., 2010; Al-Amin & Rahman, 2010; Ashraf et al., 2020; Rahman et al., 2020; Jahan et al., 2020). Hasan et al. (2010) studied the benefits and barriers of e-banking adoption from Bangladesh perspective, whereas Al-Amin and Rahman (2010) documented that strong internal network, developed IT infrastructure, and country domain, determines the electronic banking adoption and utilization decision. On the other hand, Jahan et al. (2020) examined the determinants of customer satisfaction under Internet banking operations in Bangladesh. The extensive literature review documented that Siddik et al. (2016) evaluated the impact of e-banking activities on Bangladeshi private commercial banks.