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Technology has assuaged several industries as the deployment of information technology (IT) accelerated the growth opportunities in sectors like retail, telecom, healthcare, education, and banking operations. Particularly in the banking sector, IT has automated banking processes and thus given birth to e-banking. The transition journey from traditional banking to online banking includes three phases. In the first phase (1866 to 1967), the banking industry utilized analog technologies (Gomber et al., 2018). During the second phase (1967-2008), the banking industry shifted from analog to digital technology, wherein people started using automated teller machines (ATM) or making electronic payments. The third phase began in 2008 when banks operating in developing economies started offering digital products, and internet banking penetration witnessed the surge (Chen et al. 2021). Hence, technology gave birth to new financial alternatives such as net banking, mobile banking, and mobile wallets (Chen et al., 2021; Gomber et al., 2018).
E-banking is a faceless banking solution that banks provides to their customers using technology (Jayawardhena, 2004). E-banking has facilitated trading between consumers and banks without worrying about physical presence (Auta, 2010). It has become a medium through which users can perform transactional as well as informational activities. Initially, the websites were developed for banks to provide downloadable forms, open new accounts, and process loan applications. As a piecemeal development in the IT sector, banks offer elevated services like online banking and other internet financial services. E-Banking services have numerous advantages for both customers and banks. The cost of operation per unit of services is much lower for banks (Kennedyd et al., 2020). There is very little probability of errors and an opportunity for business expansion (Lymperopoulos & Chaniotakis, 2004). To customers, it offers convenience as they are not required to go to the bank’s facilities, and they can use the banks’ services round the clock (Auta, 2010).
Due to massive changes, the traditional banking system is onerous due to volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). Hence, to sustain and revolutionize in this competitive era, banks encounter technology disruption. Also, recent reorientation in the Government of India’s policies has advent the imperative role of IT. For example, the implication of demonetization in 2016 radically increased the online/digital transaction (Gupta et al., 2018), and the implementation of GST in 2017 transformed the entire usage system of information technology. Moreover, the current pandemic Covid-19 elicits all to switch towards the electronic platform for all transactions.
Even though, until now, only 13 percent of the customers in banking sectors choose to use e-banking out of 470 million banking customers, according to a BCG report in collaboration with FICCI and Indian Banks Association (FICCI, 2020). It has been reported that owing to functional, operational, and security issues, users in India do not favor e-banking. Hence, the concerns related to trust and risk should be eradicated to satisfy the consumers (Agarwal et al., 2009) and attain loyalty (Shankar & Jebarajakirthy, 2019; Prasadh, 2019). Numerous studies have reported service quality as a decisive factor of trust and loyalty in e-banking (Oni et al., 2019; Hasandoust & Saravi, 2017). Therefore, many researchers have examined the service quality in e-banking via SERVQUAL, web quality dimensions through different aspects like accessibility & security, supporting facility completeness and information quality, website usability (Casaló et al., 2008), website persuasiveness (Díaz et al., 2016). Indeed, to investigate the attribution of trust, the present study examines the service quality by investigating the transactional and informational quality of e-banking websites. Therefore, the current research postulates the relationship between website quality and consumers’ trust via WEBQUAL 4.0, which has been hardly employed in past studies, particularly for public sector banks. Specifically, this study intends to answer the following research questions: