Why banks adopt mobile banking? The case of Turkey

Abstract

Mobile banking differs from internet banking as it enables access to financial services anytime, anywhere. Thus, it is changing the way banks create, communicate and deliver value-added products/services to their customers. However, research on mobile banking is focused on customers' adoption, while banks' perspective is neglected. This paper investigates the mobile banking adoption determinants of banks. Studying a sample of 14 Turkish banks over a 20-year period, we show that banks adopt mobile banking mainly when their deposits and loans increase and when profitability, interest income and market share decreases. Banks use mobile banking to actively manage their assets and liabilities as well as to create new revenue sources and access new customers. We also show that larger, unlisted, private and local banks are more likely to adopt mobile banking, while mobile banking complements the physical branches. Our results remain robust to alternative definitions of adoption, estimations and controls for internet adoption. Accordingly, we show that mobile banking becomes an integrated part of banks' business models.