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Top1. Introduction
Information technology advancements, internet infrastructure development, and mobile phone penetration have motivated marketers to deliver their services using a mobile phone, and banks are no exception (Shankar et al., 2020). Banks are early adopters of technology in delivering their services and use different channels such as automated teller machines, telephone banking, online banking, mobile banking, as well as near field communication to provide their services (Laukkanen, 2016; Shankar and Kumari, 2016). Among all the banking service delivery channels, m-banking is a cost-effective, flexible, and effective channel (Mullan et al., 2017; Shankar et al., 2020). M-banking platforms provide several benefits to banks and are an effective channel for consumers in accessing banking services (Shaikh and Karjaluoto, 2015; Shankar et al., 2019). A consumer can perform transactions, bill payments, mobile and DTH (a digital satellite TV service) recharges and investment and obtain account information over m-banking platforms in an effortless manner (Shankar et al., 2019). Hence, many consumers tend to adopt m-banking platforms to access banking services. By 2019, the total number of m-banking users exceeded 1.7 billion in India, representing 32 percent of the total adult population (Shankar et al., 2020a). The total number of m-banking users is expected to reach the 150 million mark by 2020 and with 1147.92 million wireless connections and 695.72 million broadband connections, India stands at second position in terms of mobile phone and internet penetration (TRAI, 2020). Hence, this is a massive opportunity for banks to deliver banking services using m-banking platforms. Consumers adopt m-banking applications for using banking services, using which is a critical issue for banks (Jebarajakirthy and Shankar, 2021). Hence, banks have endeavored to enhance consumer engagement over m-banking platforms. As consumer engagement enhances the usage of m-banking platforms, banks are keen to know how they can improve consumers' engagement towards the m-banking application.
Further, consumer engagement also helps in acquiring and retaining m-banking users. Along with the traditional service marketing mix, the mobile application's interactivity plays a crucial role in enhancing consumer engagement over m-banking platforms (Bedi et al., 2017; Islam et al., 2019). Mobile application interactivity improves consumer engagement, enhancing usability and personalization (Lee et al., 2015). The m-banking application interactivity includes the interface navigation, content, user, control, and responsiveness to enhance the consumer experience (Lee et al., 2015). Additionally, the application's interactivity offers several functional and hedonic values to the consumers using banking services over m-banking platforms (Cano et al., 2017; Shankar and Datta, 2019).