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Interactive marketing in financial services
Edited by Sally Harridge-March
1. Introduction
In recent years, developments in information technology and the subsequent evolution of internet banking have fundamentally changed the ways in which banks implement their business and consumers conduct their everyday banking activities ([21] Eriksson et al. , 2008; [87] Sayar and Wolfe, 2007). internet banking allows customers to conduct a wide range of banking transactions electronically via the bank's web site - anytime and anywhere, faster, and with lower fees compared to using traditional, real-world bank branches. However, despite the continuing increase in the number of internet users and despite all the apparent advantages of internet banking for customers, in many countries the growth rate of internet users who adopt internet banking has not risen as strongly as expected ([108] White and Nteli, 2004). Across Europe, internet banking adoption rates are markedly different. For example, in Norway and Finland 70-80 per cent of internet users adopt online banking, in Austria and Germany about 40 per cent, whereas in Greece and Romania less than 10 per cent of the internet users make use of online banking or brokerage ([65] Meyer, 2006). On the other hand, in Brazil the internet banking growth rate over the past years has exceeded that of the internet itself ([36] Hernandez and Mazzon, 2007).
These differences raise questions about the determinants of consumers' acceptance of internet banking. Using numerous different theoretical approaches and models several researchers have investigated the factors that impact the decisions of costumers to adopt internet banking (for recent reviews see, e.g. ([36] Hernandez and Mazzon, 2007; [87] Sayar and Wolfe, 2007). Compared to face-to-face transactions, internet banking transactions have some unique characteristics, such as the extensive use of technologies, the distant and impersonal nature of the online environment, and the implicit uncertainty of using an open technological infrastructure for financial transactions ([25] Gan et al. , 2006; [110] Yousafzai et al. , 2003). These particular features of internet banking render a unique environment, in which trust is of crucial importance. Recent literature on internet banking indeed shows that the lacking of trust has to be considered to be one of the main reasons why consumers are still reluctant to conduct their financial transactions online ([22] Flavian et...