Abstract
This chapter aims to understand the challenges in transitioning to the digital era of banking from the perspective of customers. This study uses an exploratory and quantitative approach. Quantitative data was collected from 329 bank clients, and then descriptive and correlation analysis was performed. The findings showed that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and facilitating conditions have a positive relation, whereas social influence was found to have weak relation. Academically, this study presents valuable insights to mobile banking utilization and to the adaptation of the UTAUT model to banking sector. From a managerial perspective, this study provides insights into clients' challenges and suggestions to better integrate online platforms into branch service and to improve customer experience.
TopIntroduction
Within the scope of digital transformation, self-service technologies (SSTs) have been increased. SSTs enables customers to produce a service without direct employee involvement (Meuter, Ostrom, Roundtree, & Bitner, 2000). They are commonly seen at self-pumping petrol stations, ticket machines at bus stations, and ATMs (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2016). SSTs have been present in the Portuguese banking sector since the introduction of the ATM in the 1980s (SIBS, 2021). Since then, the sector has been an early adopter of technology to differentiate itself from competitors (Devlin, 1995). Other examples of SSTs in the sector include telephone, internet, and mobile banking.
In the retail banking sector, the main advantages of adopting SSTs include costs reduction, service improvement efficiency, and effectiveness (Proença & Rodrigues, 2011). For customers, the ease of use, convenience, cost and time savings, and control over services increase the SST adoption rate (Curran & Meuter, 2005). Organizations need to create positive customer experiences, encourage the use of SSTs, and assist first-time users, which improves long-term customer satisfaction and loyalty and reduces waiting times (Djelassi, Diallo, & Zielke, 2018). However, they are important aspects to explore and monitor (Iqbal, Hassan, & Habibah, 2018).
When facing technology adoption, there are many challenges perceived by consumers. Despite several studies reporting on barriers regarding technology adoption regarding mobile banking (Al-Saedi & Al-Emran, 2021; Jadil, Rana & Dwivedi, 2021), there is a gap in thorough understanding of technology adoption applied to mobile banking within the context of Portugal.
Hence, the objective of the present study is first, to better understand the Portuguese context of mobile banking technologies adoption and, secondly to explore the relation between performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions regarding mobile banking technology adoption in Portugal.
To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to empirically explore the interrelations of the dimensions of mobile banking technology adoption within Portuguese market.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Fintech: Is a combination of “financial technology” and is used to describe new tech companies that disrupted finance by improving and automating the delivery and use of financial services.
Technology adoption: Is the incorporation of new technology into your business and its usage by the consumer. Adoption means that the consumer uses the technology at its fullest potential and sees the benefits of using the new systems.
Mobile Banking: Is the usage of a mobile device such as a smartphone or a tablet to make financial transactions such as bank transfers or payments.
Effort Expectancy: It relates to the consumer’s perception of easiness to perform a task.
Facilitating conditions: The perception of the existence of a system or resources that enable a service to be performed.
Performance Expectancy: It refers to the extent to which a customer perceives that using the system will help him/her to achieve benefits in a certain task.
Social Influence: The influence of other people (family, colleagues or friends) to form a perception.