Customers’ Adoption of Electronic Banking: An Investigation on the Commercial Banking Industry in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The advent of electronic banking offers banking firms a new frontier of opportunities and challenges. This study investigates how social factors, awareness, consumer perceptions and attitudes towards electronic banking influence the adoption of electronic banking in Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe little is known and understood about the emergence of electronic banking, this is because electronic banking is new, and so consumer acceptance and use of electronic banking is still limited. This study has reviewed current literature and opinions about factors influencing electronic banking, thus including consumer perceptions towards electronic banking characteristics and social influences that affect consumer adoption of this mode of banking. This study also explains the methodology used in conducting interviews to obtain primary information for this study. This study presents both the results of the interviews and the analysis of these results, with figures to determine the extent that the factors studied influence customer adoption of electronic banking. Psychological factors including, compatibility, complexity, risk, convenience, security, privacy and cost were found to influence the adoption of electronic banking. The theoretical contributions and the practical implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented.