Online Banking (part 2)

This is the second of two issues of the journal dedicated to online banking issues. The first issue concentrated on European papers. This issue contains papers from India, the USA, Singapore and New Zealand. The paper by Mukherjee and Nath reports findings from a survey of over 500 online bank customers in Calcutta. Their key findings are that trust significantly affects customers’ commitment to engage in online transactions. Trust is positively affected by shared values and reputation and, not surprisingly, negatively affected by opportunistic behaviour. The bottom line is that trust is a critical success factor in ‘‘retail bankspace’’. Gerrard and Cunningham look at the diffusion of Internet banking among Singapore consumers. Using exploratory interviews and a survey approach, they conclude that consumer adopters of Internet banking find it to be more convenient, less complex, more compatible to them and more suited to those who are PC proficient. Their findings are analysed and discussed in light of the seminal work on diffusion of innovation by Rogers. Lang and Colgate studied New Zealand bank customers. Their large-scale survey found that customers differ with regard to the combination of IT channels they may use. Where there is symmetry between the bank’s offering and the channel preferences of customers, a more positive assessment of the quality of the relationship between the customer and the bank emerges. However, where an IT gap exists (the customer wanting more or less than is provided) a less positive assessment results. Lassar and Dandapani’s USA-based experiment found that the complexity of the online task affects the consumer’s perception of the bank Web site. Significantly they also found ‘‘social presence’’ to be a non-issue (that is, the degree to which the medium conveys the sender’s psychological presence). In toto, the two special issues cover a wide subject matter. In looking at the eight papers as a piece, four sets of issues emerge. The first issue relates to bank adoption of the Internet. The resounding finding is that the Internet is one of, if not the, dominating issues of the next decade for banks. The driving forces for adoptions are largely external to individual banks and include: other banks’ adoption, competitive forces, consumer demand and the availability of technology. These drivers will overcome the inhibitors, which are largely internal to banks and include their lack of innovative culture. The second issue is consumers’ adoption. In summary, adopters find online banking more convenient, speedier, easy to use, cheaper, less complex, delivering more consistent standards of service and more suited to the PC-proficient. The third issue across the papers is that of methodology. This being a marketing journal, the survey remains the key instrument of research, with Likert scales being very popular. Only one experiment is featured (Lasser