Overview of Factors for Internet Banking Adoption

Transcription

1 2009 International Conference on CyberWorlds Overview of Factors for Internet Banking Adoption Rita E. Ochuko, Andrea J. Cullen, Daniel Neagu AI Research Centre, Department of Computing, University of Bradford, United Kingdom Abstract The study presents the major factors for Internet banking adoption and compares the levels of adoption across countries, in order to identify more easily what factors to consider most while providing banking services over the Internet. Based on prior studies, web security, Internet usage, economy status, high branch intensity, competition, government prioritization regulations, and literacy level were identified as the major factors affecting Internet banking adoption. This study uses fuzzy inference systems (FIS) to define the adoption rate. Our experimental results show that security is the most important factor because no matter how high government prioritization, literacy level, Internet users, and competition among Internet service providers are, as long as there are low security levels, the adoption rate will be at the lowest level. We conclude that, overall, the banks-specific factors are the main drivers for Internet banking adoption. 1. Introduction It was previously believed that customers would shift all or most of their banking operations from branches to online access, with the dramatic increase in the number of Internet users. However recent studies have shown that although the number of Internet banking customers is increasing worldwide, customers are still using their physical branch network for detailed financial transactions. They prefer a mix of delivery channels rather than an exclusive reliance upon any single channel [1, 2]. In addition, a study by Garter quoted in [3] finds that even though online banking has not led to a decline in the use of branchbased services, rather it has resulted in higher take-up of other channels such as ATMs and telephone banking. Furthermore, many countries have not taken full advantage of this technological development. In reality the adoption rate differs among countries and among banks within the same country [4-7]. Thus, it appears that the challenges facing banks offering services on the Internet are not only the ability to sign up customers for Internet banking but also retaining them. Security is widely seen as the main service quality barrier to the Internet banking [8]. In fact, recent studies [9, 10] found that phishing attacks on online payment services have a growth of about 50%, with about 5% of users falling victim to this type of attack. Therefore the accelerating growth in selfservice technologies (e.g. Internet-based) raises key questions around managing security, service quality, adequacy, and integrity of its information while maintaining the company-customer relationship. However, it is not known whether the same challenges facing Internet banking in one country are the same as in another. Moreover, much of the existing evidence on Internet banking adoption focuses on specific customers or bank markets in a single country. To answer these questions, we investigated public reports on six countries (the United Kingdom, Italy, Romania, Hong Kong, United State of America, and Nigeria) to determine the factors for Internet banking adoption from the customers and banks perceptions. These countries were chosen because they represent a crossregional perspective (located in Europe, Asia, America and Africa respectively) but they have different banking systems and are at various levels of technological development. This study is conducted using secondary data from existing Internet banking references, from the World Bank Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Report for 2006 [11] and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook for 2007 [12]. Thereafter the data is analyzed using fuzzy logic. The system designed is to help the bank executives to determine more easily what factors to consider most while providing banking services over the Internet. It will also give clear insight into the relative differences and adoption rates across countries. It is important to note that the lack of availability of public and official data on Internet banking services and adoption by the chosen countries, due to data protection law, privacy policies, and particular areas /09 $ IEEE DOI /CW

2 where development is still at the early stage, has determined methodological limitations. Therefore caution should be exercised when reading the data and making comparisons. Nevertheless, the authors compilation of data from a diversity of official and non-official sources such as Forrester, Finextra.com, bank websites, press releases, World Bank Information and Communication Technology, and the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook provides a general overview of Internet banking dependent on the sources of information used. This paper is divided into five sections in addition to this introduction. In section 2 we present a review of the literature on Internet banking in the chosen countries based on which our system and review are developed. In section 3 we discuss the research methodology whereas the findings are presented in section 4. Section 5 concludes the paper with discussions of limitations and further research. 2. Internet banking adoption Internet banking allows banks the potential to introduce innovative products and services to their existing customers as well as customers acquisitions. A huge number of studies have explored the attitudes and perception of customers on Internet-banking as discussed in [6, 7, 13-27]. Some researchers compared multichannel applications to dispatching financial services [2, 4, 28, 29]. Their findings revealed that Internet banking, ATM, and phone banking substitute each other. Overall, the academic literature in this area has largely focused on the adoption factors based on specific customers or bank market in a single country. A small number of studies have, however, identified Internet banking adoption across countries [1, 30, 31]. One group has examined this phenomenon at the level of comparing the performance of pure Internet banking model versus banks which adopt both click and mortar banking model [31]. They believe that adopters of pure Internet banking model are not performing worse than click and mortar banking adopters, in terms of average returns to assets (or equity), and do not seem to run higher operational costs for the little income they generate. Their study also revealed that the success of pure Internet banking model depends on the structure of clients deposits, although value added products still need the interaction with a physical branch. However the adoption of Internet banking is mainly driven by factors external to the banking industry, such as the percentage of households with access to the Internet at home, a higher broadband penetration rate, and higher spending on R&D employment. These are positive factors influencing the performance of Internet banking. Another research group [1] examined pure Internet banking versus traditional banking to find out whether Internet banking adopters will generate scale economies in excess of those available to traditional banks. Their finding confirms that Internet banks show technological based scale economies, but with no conclusive evidence of the existence of technology based learning economies. Furthermore, as Internet banks get larger, the profitability gap for traditional banks will shrink. The European consumers are also largely concerned about security of Internet banking. Internet banking at the level of adoption by consumers, the drivers and barriers for adoption in 15 European countries and in Acceding and Candidate Countries (ACCs) are examined in [30]. The findings revealed that PC ownership and access to the Internet at home are critical barriers to the adoption. More also specific barriers related to the banking sector, such as security, lower institutional trust in banking actors, privacy concerns and lower development and use of financial services, have a major effect to adoption. Generally, there is a broad concern about security of the new technology. However, the fragmentation of research into countries to include not only the advanced countries, but the developing countries from Africa and Asia, has inhibited scholars from achieving more integrated challenges facing the banking sectors while conducting banking transactions in cyberspace. Therefore, we propose to examine factors for Internet banking adoption from six different countries from Europe, Asia, America and Africa Internet banking in Europe, Asia, America and Africa The Internet banking penetration by users in the U.S. is about 44.4% [32]. A survey of 2040 adults conducted by Finextra Research [33] revealed that about 49% of active online users in the U.S. conduct most of, if not all, of their banking via the Internet, with an increase of nearly 23% from early In addition, Forrester Research finds that U.S. consumers are using the Internet banking channel more frequently to access their accounts during the current global financial crisis [38]. However the study of comscore suggested that engagement at many of the top banking sites first saw decrease in the industry from Q to Q quoted in [34] and [35]. More also comscore reveals that bank customers and their bank accounts are affected by factors like increased joblessness, less cash, credit crisis and the overall poor health of the U.S. 164

3 economy [35]. As a result, consumers are reducing their Internet banking activities. Thus bankers who have relied on engaged visits from customers to build loyalty and to cross-sell additional products and services, are facing a significant marketing challenge in attracting consumers time and attention, at a time when consumers confidence in their banks is being tested. While this is a challenge to some of the players, it is also an opportunity for other competitors to address customers with the choice of adoption of new technologies [35, 36]. Development in the European countries shares some similarities despite the differences which exist between the system adopters. In the 1980s the ATMs were the key electronic banking systems in operation, customers were allowed access remotely to their account. The systems basically allowed only basic deposits and withdrawals of money and later evolved to accessing and printing of account statements, make requests for chequebooks etc. The banking system today has gone beyond the above mentioned to wireless devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones. Over the past decade the penetration in the U.K. has gradually grown by 49.5% [32, 37]. However a study released by Forrester Research finds that the growth of online banking in the UK begins to slow down in the last two years after a steady take-up of the service between 2000 and 2005 [38]. In addition, APACS (the UK payments association) reported that although online banking fraud losses fell by 67% in 2007, phishing incidents are rather on the rise by 42% [10]. Previous research studying the adoption reasons revealed that the major influencing factors to the Internet banking adoption are the perceived security of the bank s websites, responsiveness of service delivery, ease of use of the bank s website, credibility of the Internet banking provider [21], literacy level and Internet accessibility [17]. In Italy the adoption of Internet banking depends much on the acceptance and use of Internet. According to a study by Forrester Research [38], only 15% of adults bank regularly on the Internet [38]. The findings revealed that not many people use the Internet and those who do are still much reluctant to using the system. In addition the adoption of Internet banking is negatively affected because the Italian banks operate in a well-defined geographical area, therefore have little or no interest in adopting Internet banking [7]. However some of the large banks in Italy are currently promoting online banking and offer financial incentives to encourage customers to use it [38]. Romania with a well over 22million inhabitants is portrayed as a poor country [29]. However it has experienced consistently high rates of growth in both IT and telecommunication industries over the last five years. The first Internet banking service was introduced in Romania in 1999 [39]. Since then, Internet Banking has become increasingly popular, but has yet practically not achieved the expected level of usage, and the necessary legislative environment is still incomplete. Branches are still the classical channel of banking services [29]. One of the major factors affecting the adoption is that most of the customers still perceive Internet banking as expensive, slow and risky [29]. Furthermore the level of knowledge/computer literacy of the population is also influencing directly the success of Internet banking adoption in this country. Hong Kong on the other hand first introduced Internet banking in The Hong Kong market has strongly recognized the importance of Internet banking and it is, according to [40], one of the most advanced Internet banking systems in the world. However, Internet banking users number is relatively low compared with the number of Internet users. Internet adoption rate is 83% while Internet banking is 32% [26]. The major inhibitors to Internet banking by non adopters are risk, the ease of use [26], perceived usefulness of the technology [41], the convenience of using ATM, phone banking, and branch banking [26]. In addition security of the innovation continues to be a main concern for adopters and non adopters [26, 40]. The Nigerian banking sector in 2004 underwent a major banking reform, due to persistent cases of distress and failure, in addition to poor capital base, poor asset quality, fraud, corruption, erosion in public confidence among others [5, 42]. The Nigerian banking institution has realized the importance of technological adoption, and has therefore embraced the electronic and telecommunication networks for delivery products and services. The adoption rate of Internet banking was recently about 16.7% [43]. Adequate operational infrastructures, acquisition of software that can handle effectively the Internet banking, literacy level are factors affecting Internet banking adoption in this country. Table 1 synthesizes and compares the factors affecting Internet banking across the countries investigated. Government prioritization/regulation, Internet usage, literacy level, competition, perceived web security, and high branch intensity are major issues for concern across the countries we analyzed. The Yes value in the columns above indicates countries affected, the No value indicates that a country is not affected. The - in the columns means that the factor is undetermined from the data source. 165

4 Table1. Factors for Internet banking adoption United United State Romania Kingdom of America Hong Kong Italy Nigeria Countries Government prioritization/ regulations Yes Yes Yes - Yes Yes Literacy Yes Yes - Yes Yes Yes Access to Internet Yes Yes Yes - - Yes Perceived web security Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Bank size Yes - Yes - Yes Yes Consumer age - Yes - Yes - - Population density - - Yes - Yes - Perceived ease of use - Yes Yes Yes - - Attitude to new technology Yes Yes - Yes Yes - Geographic regions Yes - Yes - Yes - Capital per income Yes - Yes Yes Yes - Competition Yes Yes Yes - Yes Yes High branch intensity Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Internet only banks - Yes Yes - - No Web site accessibility Yes Yes Yes Yes - - Credibility of the Internet banking provider - Yes Perceived usefulness of technology - Yes - Yes - - Incentive programs provided by banks Yes Yes Economy status Yes Yes Yes Internet usage Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 3. Research Methodology This research has focused on the factors affecting Internet banking adoption, from both customers and banks point of view. It aimed to design a system to determine Internet banking adoption rate based on the most identified factors. The methodology consists of first identifying the five major factors as seen from the table above. This is based on collected data from the World Bank Information and Communication Technology (ICT) [11], and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) The World Factbook for 2007 [12]. Based on the facts reported so far, we designed and tested a fuzzy inference system (FIS) to determine the adoption rate. The adoption rate of Internet banking is ascertained for chosen factors: high web security, average Internet users, average government regulations and high literacy level which may imply a very high adoption rate or a very low risk level. The information flow for the use of this FIS for the above aim is depicted in Figure System description We studied initially the system based on the five most significant factors affecting Internet banking adoption in the United Kingdom, United States of America, Romania, Italy, Hong Kong and Nigeria. The results will be compared with the outputs of the set of FIS having just two inputs from the same range and the adoption rate as an output. We tried in an empirical way to address the significance of the number of inputs as well as feature selection issue. Inputs (security, government prioritization, literacy level, Internet users, and competition) Output Fuzzifier Defuzzifier Fuzzy inputs Adoption rate Fuzzy inference Aggregation Figure 1. A fuzzy inference system for Internet banking adoption model 166

5 4.1. The FIS with five inputs and one output The initial complex Internet banking adoption system has five inputs (Secure Internet server, Literacy level, Government prioritization, Internet users, and Competition) and one output (Adoption rate). The inference engine is of Mamdani type. The system designed is intended to satisfy the following requirements 1 Determine the required fuzzy variables (inputs and output) and their ranges. 2 Determine the fuzzy sets 3 Form the rule base 4 Evaluate and tune the system. Table 2. The range definition for FIS inputs Factors Range Adult literacy rate (% ages 15 and over) Level of competition: Internet service provider (%) Government prioritization of ICT (scale 1-7) 0-7 Internet users (per 1000 people) Secure Internet servers (per 1 million people) The inputs are fuzzified via Gaussian membership functions (without restricting the generality of the experiment). It is also a popular method for specifying fuzzy sets and has the advantage of being smooth at all points. The output of the system is Adoption Rate described by three membership functions (Low, Average and High) The fuzzy rules Fuzzy rules are used to capture human knowledge in form of conditional statements [44]. The FIS with five inputs and one output has 45 rules while the FIS S/N Secure Internet server with two inputs and one output has 18 rules. An example of one of the rules derived from the five inputs and one output FIS is given below: If (Secure Internet Server is Low) AND (Government prioritization is Weak) AND (Literacy level is Low) AND (Internet users is Low) AND (Competition is Low) then Adoption rate is Low FIS Tuning by adjusting the fuzzy rules. We want to see that our fuzzy system meets the requirements specified at the beginning, and also want to address the performance. On the average the Internet banking adoption rate is about 55.5% when all five inputs (Secure Internet server, Government prioritization, Literacy level, Internet users and Competition) are on the average. A stage of evaluation and tuning was also performed. Some of the most common cases include: the literacy level may be as high as possible, but in the context of low security level, the adoption rate is kept to a flat minimum (Table 3 and Figure 2); in an average security-level environment, a good government prioritization, good literacy level, high Internet users rate and high rate of competition by Internet service providers increase chances of adoption, which is still lower than a safe and secure access. Security is the most important variable because no matter how high government prioritization, literacy level, Internet users, and competition among Internet service providers are, as long as there is low security levels, the adoption rate will be at the lowest minimum (Table 3). But keeping security high and one or two other inputs high will give a very high adoption rate. Table 3. Tuning of the FIS by adjusting the fuzzy rules Government Literacy Internet Competition prioritization [ICT] level users [Internet service Adoption rate % provider] 1 Low High High High High Low Low Low Low High High High High Low Low High High High High Low Average Average Average Average Average Average Average Average High Average Average High Average High Average Average Average High High Average High High Average Average Average High Average Average Average Average High Average High Average Average High High High High Average High High High High High

6 Table 4. The adoption rate of the FIS with two inputs at a very high level S/N Very High Very High Adoption Rate 1 Secure Internet Level 693 Literacy Level server level Internet users Competition Government prioritization Comparing the performance of Internet banking adoption rate of five inputs FIS with two inputs FIS Although our fuzzy system with five inputs and one output works well, we want to compare it with a reduced version having two inputs and one output. On the average the Internet banking adoption rate with five inputs and one output is 55.5%. The FIS with five inputs is quite better in most of the cases, with the exclusion of Literacy level, Government prioritization and Internet users that have the adoption rate of 68.7%. However, one of the most common cases includes: the Literacy level, Government prioritization, Literacy level, Internet users, and Competition may be as high as possible, but in the context of low Security Level, the adoption rate is kept to a flat minimum (Figures 2 and 3). It can be seen that security is the most important variable because no matter how weak the other factors are, as long as there is high security levels, the adoption rate will be on the average. But a balance between these inputs will give a very high adoption rate. The FIS with five inputs has a better adoption rate compared to the FIS with two inputs at the highest level for each category (see Tables 3 and 4). 5. Conclusion and future work Overall the biggest concern for Internet banking today is not only acquiring new customers but retaining them. Despite the large number of banks offering Internet banking services and the dramatic increase in the number of Internet users across the world, physical branch banking is still the main accepted banking system among consumers. More over security concern accounts for more than 70% of the factors for Internet banking adoption across these countries. Thus the banks, the government and Internet service providers should act as educators in order to develop the potential market of banking services. Figure 2. One of the surface viewers of the FIS with two inputs: secure Internet server and literacy level Figure 3. One of the surface viewers of the FIS with five inputs: secure Internet server, literacy level, Internet users, competition, and government prioritization More research is envisaged on the significance and tuning of the factors for Internet banking adoption. On the other side, a focus on security, protection and confidentiality issues, identification of unlawful attacks and confidence in using this new emerging approach in international banking is necessary. We believe that Internet adoption is dependent not only on technological and economical factors, but also local and cultural parameters. Further studies to include these new parameters in a decision system and their influence on Internet banking adoption in different countries are planned by the authors. 6. References [1] J. Delgado, I. Hernando, and M. J. Nieto, "Do European Primarily Internet Banks Show Scale and Experience Efficiencies?", European Financial Management, vol. 13, no. 4, September, 2007, pp [2] F. Caliser and C.A. Gumussoy, "Internet Banking versus other banking Channels:Young concumers view ", International Journal of Information Management, vol. 28, no. 3, April, 2008, pp [3] Finextra Research, "Internet Banking goes mainstream in US and UK - Gartner", February, 2008; available: 168

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