E-banking Complexities and the Perpetual Effect on Customer Satisfaction in Rwandan Commercial Banking Industry: Gender as a Moderating Factor

Machogu AM; Okiko L

E-banking Complexities and the Perpetual Effect on Customer Satisfaction in Rwandan Commercial Banking Industry: Gender as a Moderating Factor

Machogu AM^1* and Okiko L²

Lecturer, Adventist University of Central Africa, Kigali, Rwanda
MBA Student and Scholar in Area of Management, Adventist University of Central Africa, Kigali, Rwanda

Corresponding Author: Machogu AM, Lecturer, Adventist University of Central Africa, Kigali, Rwanda, Tel: 250 785446163; E-mail: morongeab@gmail.com

Received: July 15, 2015 Accepted: September 03, 2015 Published:September 09, 2015

Citation: Machogu AM, Okiko L (2015) E-banking Complexities and the Perpetual Effect on Customer Satisfaction in Rwandan Commercial Banking Industry: Gender as a Moderating Factor. J Internet Bank Commer 20:118.

Copyright: © 2015 Machogu AM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Related article at Pubmed, Scholar Google

Visit for more related articles at Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce

Abstract

The marvelous kinds of innovation in technology and hard line blend of it with information technology has made a paradigm shift in the banking industry. Transformation from traditional, bricks-and-mortar banking to E-banking has been momentous. The major innovation in technology have been a major force in the radical transformation that has led to the geographical, legal and industrial barriers and has led to the creation of new products and services more so in the banking industry. E-banking can be traced back to as early as 1970s. The main two reason as to why banks began replacing some of their traditional branch functions include:- Firstly, the setup and maintenance of branches was very expensive because of the overhead expenses associated with them, and Secondly, E-banking products/services created a completive advantage for the banks that utilized them. E-banking is a composite of various or technologies, such as telephone (both landline and cell phones), direct bill payment i.e. (Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)) and PC or Internet banking and mobile banking. The five main basic services associated with ebanking include: view of account balances and transaction histories; paying bills; transferring funds between accounts; requesting credit card advances; and ordering checks. The objective of this study to evaluate the perceptual view of the male and female respondents on the e-banking complexities and how they affect the male and female customer’s satisfaction. The research evaluated the view of the respondents based on their demographic profile on the E-banking complexities and its effects on their satisfaction. This research was perceptual-tailored and relationship-oriented; identifying the underpinning e-banking complexities, and how they are influenced by the customer’s gender and its effect on customer satisfaction. The study used the descriptive and co relational research designs. The respondents sampled in this study were only users of the e-banking services. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient was 0.91. A data set to test the proposed model came from self-constructed, statistically validated and self-administered survey of a convenience sample of retail banking customers. A self structured questionnaire was distributed to 250 bank customers in various commercial banks that use e-banking services. The statistical result reveal that there exists a strong relationship between electronic banking complexities- Ease of Access/Accessibility, Inter-Phase Design, Cost/ Fees/Charges, E-Banking Equipment usage, Privacy/Risk/Authentication, and Customer Satisfaction, and customer satisfactions with the female respondents exemplifying higher satisfaction levels than their male counterparts. The male respondent’s seemingly portrayed having experienced e-banking complexities in the usage of e-banking, than female. On the individual dimensions of e-banking complexities on overall customer satisfaction indicates Accessibility/ Ease of access, Inter-phase Design/Feel, Ease of E-equipment’s usage, had a significant impact, on customer satisfaction for male and female customer while Privacy/Authentication had a significant impact, on customer satisfaction for male customers only. Cost/fees and charges, had no significant impact on customer satisfaction for male and female customer, while Privacy/Authentication had no significant impact, on customer satisfaction for female customers only.

Keywords

Banking; E-banking; E-banking complexities; Rwanda

Background and Objectives

Banking institutions today are undergoing radical electronic transformations with the aim of gaining competitive advantage. The evolution of the e-banking and the changing from the traditional, bricks and mortar banking to E-banking has been big. The evolution of the E-banking industry can be said to have begun in the early 1970s. Banks began to look at E-banking as a means to replace some of their traditional branch functions for two reasons. The main reasons for the evolution of banking technology as indicated by Mojumder, Islam, Moshiur and Nazmul [1] is due to the changes in distribution channels as indicated by automated teller machine (ATM), Phone banking, Tele banking, PC banking and internet banking. Batchelor indicates that eelectronic banking, or e-banking, is used to describe all electronic transactions that take place among companies, organizations, and individuals and their banking institutions. E-banking, has various definitions and terminologies used such as ‘internet banking”, and ‘online banking’. E-banking mainly is the use of the internet and information technology as the delivery channel to transact and conduct banking activities, and this includes, transferring funds, paying bills, viewing checking and savings account balances, applying for credit cards, transferring money and paying mortgages. Specifically, E-banking is where a customer can access his or her bank account via the internet using personal computer or mobile phone and web-browser. E- Banking brings a number of benefits for both the provider and the customer. Table 1 indicates the different forms of electronic banking.

According to Delvin [2], customers have less time to spend on activities such as visiting a bank and therefore want a higher degree of convenience and accessibility. The service quality attributes that the Internet banks must offer to induce consumers to switch to online transactions and keep using them are perceived usefulness, ease of use, reliability, responsiveness, security, and continuous improvement.

From the bank’s perspective these are mainly related to cost savings [3,4] and internet banking remain one of the cheapest and more efficient delivery channels [5]. Other rationales for the adoption of such services are also related to competition as internet banking strategy has been an interesting way to retain existing customers and attract new ones [4] and to the numerous advantages to banks for instance, mass customization, more effective marketing and communication at lower costs amongst others [6]. Benefits for the end users are numerous and include mainly convenience of the service (time saved and globally accessible service); lower cost of transaction and more frequent monitoring of accounts among others [5]. Increased comfort and time-saving where transactions can be made 24 hours a day, without requiring the physical interaction with the bank and also better administration of funds that is the history of a transaction is registered on the digital support and can be analyzed before a new transaction is initiated, are also among the arguments favoring internet banking [6].

With the rapid growth of the Internet and the globalization of the market, most companies are attempting to attract and retain customers. In the changing banking scenario of the 21st century, banks have to build a strong identity to provide world-class services. The banks have to be of high standard, committed to excellence in customers, shareholders and employees’ satisfaction, and to play a leading role in the expanding and diversifying of financial sector [7]. There has been a tremendous change in the way of banking between the year 2005 and 2009 and customers have also rightly demanded world class quality services from the banks. With multiple choices available, customers are not willing to put up with anything less than the best. Banks have recognized the need to meet customers’ aspirations as different customers have different personalities, so it is an urgent drive for the banks to establish the determinants of customer loyalty in the banking sector in order to enhance customer loyalty and retention.

By adopting the new technologies in the market the banks believe that they will be able to improve the provision of services to its customers and thus pull the customers closer to the bank. E-banking as indicated by Wung wanitchakorn is in its early stages and many organizations adopt it as one way of cutting down of operation for the financial institutions.

No other medium than the Internet – the fastest growing form of communication media in history Berners-Lee and Fischetti has ever confronted its (new) users with such vast and diverse difficulties of use. Even nowadays as the Internet is used as a common instrument, its utilization often evokes problems.

Many studies have been carried out to evaluate the differences between men and women on satisfaction. Customer characteristics such as gender have a great impact on the level of customer satisfaction. In banking sector, customers are presumed to be one of the most important stakeholders, because without them, banks are not likely to succeed. Hence, banks emphasize on research in the area of customer satisfaction. Thus studying the gender differences in e-banking complexities and satisfaction is a useful gap in literature that this paper intends to fill, since the listed factors that are presently seen as setbacks for e-banking may be perceived differently by male and female customers alike.

It is very important for banks to understand potential demographic profile effects on customers’ satisfaction for the development of effective marketing strategies and further help bankers to find better ways of communicating with both sexes which will guide electronic banking marketing mix decisions. Investigating such relationships is significant because without sound evidence and guidelines, managers may run the risk of making wrong decisions. The question is whether there is any significant difference between the satisfactions of the customers when categorized based on the gender factor. It is against this background that this paper tries to evaluate customers’ satisfaction based on the gender of the customers using primary data analysis.

The main objectives for conducting this research are:

1. To determine the perception of the respondents on the e-banking complexities based on the gender.

2. To determine the perception of the respondents on their satisfaction (customer loyalty, retention, trust and commitment) based on the gender.

3. To determine the impact of Accessibility/ Ease of access (EA), Inter-phase Design/Feel (ID), Cost/fees and charges (CF), Ease of E-equipment’s usage (EE), Privacy/Authentication (PA) on the customer satisfaction (CS).

Conceptual Framework

Figure 1 indicates the framework that was used in this study.

Research limits

The study was conducted at the headquarters of commercial banks in Kigali, Rwanda, and did not take into consideration the branches, that spread across the country. The inclusion of the branches could have given a broader scope of the complexities experienced in a wider span of users.

Theoretical and related literature review

This section reviewed both theoretical and empirical literature relating to e-banking complexities and the effect on the satisfaction of the customer in the retail banks.

E-banking complexities

Electronic bank complexities refer to the hardship that customers face in the use of electronic banking. The low education, culture of not using information technology equipments or the advanced age can increase these complexities on one hand. Banks equipments can have technical problems that may be the source of such complexities on the other hand. The e-banking complexities analyzed in this study include accessibility/ease of use, Inter phase Design, Cost/fees and charges of Access, and Privacy/Authentication/risk.

Genders influence on e- banking complexities

Ahmad says that E-banking offers consumers and organizations many benefits, including 24/7 access to accounts and services. As financial institutions continue to develop online banking, customers are using more services, such as bill payment across industries, money transfer and mobile e-banking using cell phones and hand-held devices Goodwin Jones et al. For using out electronic banking properly, a basic knowledge of computers, telephone and the Internet is required, which limits the number of people willing to avail this facility. Hackett et al. and many people, who are not comfortable with computers, telephone and the Internet, often, find it difficult to access this service.

Brown [8] indicates that the ease of use variable is related to an easy to remember, well organized, easy navigability, concise and understandable contents, terms and conditions. Further researchers have argued that perceived ease of use is the extent to which a person accepts as true that using a technology will be at no cost to that individual. Nadim and Noorjahan [9] clearly indicates that perceived ease of use as a degree to which an innovation is perceived not to be difficult to understand, learn or operate. He further stated that perceived ease of use is the degree to which consumers perceive a new product or service as better than its substitutes.

They further indicate that perceived ease of use is the consumer’s perception that banking on the internet will involve a minimum effort. They also noted that perceived ease of use refers to the ability of consumers to experiment with a new innovation and evaluate its benefits easily. The drivers of growth in electronic banking are determined by the perceived ease of use which is a combination of convenience provided to those with easy internet access, the availability of secure, high standard electronic banking functionality, and the necessity of banking services.

Recent literature has established that communication, information sharing, distant in electronic means, and level of perceived usefulness and innovativeness are major setbacks in E-banking acceptance and patronage by customers [10-12] and gender has been noted in the literature as a factor that affects customer satisfaction.

Proctor discussed content preparation in a broad sense and identified its four aspects: knowledge elicitation, information organization and structure, information retrieval, and information presentation. He continues during design, and prior to implementation, it is strongly recommended that users of different ages, and with arrange of capabilities and limitations be engaged to trial the new service and provide feedback. Financial institutions should test accessibility of their customer websites with both automated tools and user accessibility trials.

According to Ganapathy et al. [13] and Seethamraju [14], they clearly indicate that with an increasing number of customers being online, the importance of Web sites for influencing purchasing decisions is rising steadily. Measuring the quality of Web sites from a user’s perspective enables companies to take corrective actions, develop an appropriate e-business strategy, and improve their operations, thus Web site quality can be seen as an antecedent of service quality. Gruen [15] indicates that the services marketing literature suggests that the customers who are not satisfied with the basic services of the organization are likely to seek to satisfy their needs elsewhere.

Perceived credibility refers to the two important dimensions security and privacy that are identified across many studies as effecting intention by users to adopt the Internet-based transaction systems [16].

Perceived risk is considered an important risk attribute that impacts on the consumer decision-making process when buying a product or consuming some services [17]. Electronic banking is a technology enabled channel and consumers’ perceive the use of electronic banking as a risky decision because technology enabled services exhibit invasive technological, unfamiliar and indefinite stimuli [18]. Therefore, when consumers decide to use electronic banking, they are exposed to uncertainties such as the availability, the compatibility, and the performance of the complementary electronic banking channels [19]. The degree to which individuals accommodate these uncertainties may have gender implications.

White and Nteli [20] highlight that although service providers, financial institutions, the media, security organizations, and security experts have continually provided technical information and verbal assurances on dealing with online security threats, consumers are fearful of the intruder getting hold of their accounts and other confidential information and hence security preys heavily on consumers’ minds.

Cox and Rich [21] provided a more precise definition of perceived risk; it is a function of consequences (the dollar at risk from the purchase decision) and uncertainty (the person’s feeling of subjective uncertainty that he or she could gain or lose from the transaction). Although electronic banking provides many opportunities for the banks, it is also the case that the banking services provided through internet are limited due to security concerns and technology problems. Kaleem and Ahmad [22] view risk in the context of security concerns, and trust in one’s bank, while Saadullah [23] indicates that perceived risk is related to reliability and system failure. Lichtenstein and Williamson [24] indicate that security, privacy, trust and risk concerns may impact consumer electronic banking usage.

Valtonen et al. [25] indicate that Information communication and technology has created a new branch and evolution of opportunities for illegal activity. The indicate that one can act anonymously or even assume false identities; in most cases the environment allows deceptive undertakings, such as fraudulent requisitions from electronic stores (e-stores), gathering of sensitive information via unauthorized electronic mail (e-mail) monitoring, the disruption of a web site by sending viruses or the illegitimate acquisition of credit cards numbers. Such unwarranted and illicit actions – and the threat of these – entail increased security costs and consequently higher product prices, and are thus harmful for both organizations operating in electronic commerce and consumers.

Toigo [26] indicates the introduction of the technology and the underlying complexity of ICT has led to the risks such as strategic risk, operational risk, and reputational risk. Consumer Perceived risks identified by literature of electronic banking include; financial risk, performance risk, physical risk, social risk, and Psychological risk. Financial risk represents the financial loss in using electronic banking, as consumers may perceive that reversing a transaction, stopping a payment after discovering an error, or a refund may not be possible. Performance risk in electronic banking is less satisfying than nonelectronic banking, as consumers may perceive that electronic banking cannot be used to complete a transaction when needed due to the denial of access to their account. Physical risk in electronic banking refers to possible injury when personal information is accessed by a third party. Social risk refers to the older generation who may object to the use of electronic banking due to their perception that non-electronic banking is personal and friendly. Psychological risk represents consumer perceptions that the use of electronic banking would reduce the selfimage of them, or have a negative effect on their perceived image from other consumers. Time risk in electronic banking implies that it takes more time to complete a banking transaction than a non-electronic banking transaction.

Suominen [27] in his research on the Nordic banks, he notes that there have been some instances where large e-banks have crashed, blocking customer’s access to their accounts for long periods of time. Security is the one biggest problem with electronic banking. According to Peter probably the greatest challenge facing internet services is the issue of customer safety and security. The net has proven especially vulnerable to fraud and identity theft in which sensitive private information about business and individuals is stolen by unauthorized persons and used to run up large credit card bills or to ravage the reputation of victims.

Sathye [3], Rotchanakitumuuai and Speece [28], Wang et al. [16] indicates that customer acceptance of E-banking is a key indicator of technology usage and barriers to internet banking adoption include consumer concerns of media information on security breaches, the reliability of online transactions, the security of the internet banking system and banks capability of protecting customers’ accounts and privacy.

Sathye [3] Salisbury et al. [29] Cheng et al. [30] agrees that the consumers, therefore, are more likely to use internet banking when they perceive no risk to their bank accounts and other confidential information and are aware of security measures Verhagen and Tan [31] further indicates that these observations suggest that perception of internet banking security is likely to influence usage intentions and also customer awareness and knowledge of security are likely to influence their views on internet banking security. Lowering perceived risks associated with online transactions as well as maintaining transaction trust are vital keys to attracting and retaining customers.

The importance of security and privacy to the acceptance of Internet banking has been noted in many banking studies [3,11,32,33]. In specific, privacy and security were found to be significant obstacles to the adoption of online banking in Australia [3].

Most fundamentally, most of the individuals are reluctant to use Internet banking as they have concerns over the security and privacy issues. This is also supported by the findings of Suganthi and Balachandran [7] who found that one of the important factors affecting Internet banking in Malaysia is security concerns.

Genders influence on customer satisfaction: Customer loyalty, customer retention, customer commitment, customer trust

Oliver [34], Oliver and Svan [35] look at satisfaction as a postchoice evaluative judgment concerning a specific purpose decision and are mostly used as part of the confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm. Several authors have argued that satisfaction is based on the customer’s cumulative experience rather than being a transaction-specific phenomenon. Satisfaction is an important antecedent in fostering customer retention, as it can affect a buyer’s decision to continue a relationship with the organization.

According to Baker the term customer loyalty is used to describe the behavior of repeat customers, as well as those that offer good ratings, reviews, or testimonials. Some customers do a particular company a great service by offering favorable word of mouth publicity regarding a product, telling friends and family, thus adding them to the number of loyal customers. The ultimate goal of customer loyalty programs is happy customers who will return to purchase again and persuade others to use that company’s products or services. This equates to profitability, as well as happy stakeholders. The concept of customer loyalty is anchored on the theory of consumer behavior which is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy a product. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people’s wants.

Ndubisi and Pfeifer pointed out that the cost of serving a loyal customer is five or six times less than a new customer. This statement shows the importance of customer loyalty. He mentioned that it is better to look after the existing customer before acquiring new customers. Gee et al. stated the advantages of customer loyalty which include the service cost of a loyal customer is less than new customers, they will pay higher costs for a set of products and for a company a loyal customer will act as a word-of-mouth marketing agent.

Research Methodology

The research employed and utilized descriptive and correctional research design. The choice of these designs was informed by the ability of descriptive method to profile respondents categorically and the correlation was to examine the relationship between variables.

The self-structured questionnaire was self-administered to 250 customers using the convenience sampling method though a voluntary participation from the bank’s customers who use e-banking services. The components of e-banking complexities and outcomes of customer satisfaction items were measured on 5 point Likert scale ranging from 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly disagree), and the data was analyzed using spss version 21.

Data Analysis, Interpretations and Discussions

Profile of the respondents

The profile of the respondents was analyzed through descriptive statistics as presented in Table 2, which indicates 200 male representing (73%) and 74 female, representing (27%) of the total 274 respondents used in the study. This proportional difference only reflects the number of respondents surveyed.

Electronic banking services used by the respondents

The electronic banking services were analyzed based on the respondent’s usage of the various services. Table 3 illustrates the highest usage of e-banking as being ATM, followed by mobile banking and internet banking.

Respondent’s perception on the E-banking complexities and customer satisfaction when categorized according to gender

Table 4 gives a summary of the response perception on the e-banking complexities and customer satisfaction when categorized based on their gender.

Based on the statistical findings in Table 4, it clearly indicates that the male do perceive e-banking complexities more than their female counterparts. The same applies to the satisfaction gained from using the e-banking services. Jaruwachithanakul and Fink [36] conducted using age, gender, educational levels, and income as moderating factors, found out that gender, educational levels and income were found to significantly influence the perception of the respondents on the e-banking complexities. Age, however, was found not to have a significant relationship with the negative perception of the e-banking complexities. Hernandez and Mazzon found that the perception of e-banking complexities was associated with particular personal characteristics especially age and education level.

Influence of e-banking complexities on overall customer satisfaction

To know the influence of the individual dimensions of e-banking complexities on overall customer satisfaction, multiple regressions with gender as a moderating factor was done using the following models:

Male Customer Satisfaction = α + β1(EA) + β2(ID) + β3(CF) + β4(EE) + β5(PA) + e

Female Customer Satisfaction = α + β1(EA) + β2(ID) + β3(CF) + β4(EE) + β5(PA) + e

Table 5 show the results revealed from the regression analysis using gender as a moderating factor.

From Table 5, it can be seen that R value is 0.981 for male and 0.995 for female. Therefore, R value (.981) for male and (.995) for female, on the e-banking complexities dimensions namely accessibility, design, cost, equipment usage, and privacy suggested that there is a strong effect of these five independent variables on customer satisfaction.

Table 5 illustrates that the coefficient of determination i.e. the R-square (R2) value is 0.962 for male and 0.989 for female, which representing that 96.2% for male and 99.5% for female variation of the dependent variable (Average Customer Satisfaction) is due to the independent variables (E-banking complexities), which in fact, is a strong explanatory power of regression.

From the Table 5, it is identified that the value of F-stat is 1006.779 for male and 880.265 for female and are significant as the level of significance (Sig) is less than 5% (p<0.05). This indicates that the overall model both for male and female were reasonably fit and there was a statistically significant association between E-banking complexities and customer satisfaction. Additionally, this also indicated that the null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted. Hence it can be concluded that E-banking complexities have significant impact on customer satisfaction of Rwandan commercial banks.

In Table 5, un-standardized coefficients indicated how much the dependent variable varies with an independent variable, when all other independent variables are held constant. The beta coefficients indicated how and to what extent the E-banking dimensions such as Accessibility/Ease of access (EA), Inter-phase Design/Feel (ID), Cost/ fees and charges (CF), Ease of E-equipment’s usage (EE), Privacy/ Authentication (PA) influence male and female customer’s satisfaction of a bank.

For the male customers it can be seen that, Ease of E-equipment’s usage (EE) (beta=0.523, t=9.097, p<0.000) and Privacy/Authentication (PA) (beta=0.3447, t=16.741, p<0.000) have the highest influence or significant impact on male customer satisfaction, Accessibility/Ease of access (EA) (beta=0.310, t=5.841, p<0.000), has a relatively lower influence or significant impact on customer satisfaction, Inter-phase Design/Feel (ID) (beta=-0.216, t=-4.378, p<0.000) has a negative impact on customer satisfaction while Cost/fees and charges (CF) (beta=-0.104, t=-2.310, p<0.022) has no influence or significant impact on customer satisfaction. The regression Model for the male customer is:

Male Customer Satisfaction = -.004 + .310(EA) -.216(ID) -.104(CF) + .523(EE) + .447(PA)

For the female customers it can be seen that Accessibility/ Ease of access (EA) (beta=0.348, t=5.686, p<0.000) and Inter-phase Design/Feel (ID) (beta=0.357, t=6.981, p<0.000) have the highest influence or significant impact on female customer satisfaction. Ease of E-equipment’s usage (EE) (beta=0.258, t=4.701, p<0.000) has a relatively lower influence or significant impact on female customer satisfaction, while Cost/fees and charges (CF) (beta=-0.059, t=-1.076, p<0.287) and Privacy/Authentication (PA) (beta =.118, t=2.434,p<0.019), have no influence or significant impact on customer satisfaction. The regression Model for the male customer is:

Female Customer Satisfaction = 0.125 + 0.348(EA) + 0.357(ID) – 0.059(CF) + 0.258(EE) + 0.118(PA)

These findings are in line with Jun et al. [37], Yang and Fang [38] who revealed that ease of use has considerable impacts on both customers perceived e-banking complexities and satisfaction. Jayawardhena and Foley [39] illustrated that web site features such as speed, web site content and design, navigation, interactivity and security all influence user satisfaction. In their research Hoffman and Novak found out that there is a significant correlation between Ease of access and user satisfaction, this is further compounded by Johnston, who illustrates that certain actions, such as increasing Inter-phase Design and Privacy, are likely to have an important effect in terms of pleasing customers.

Some studies show that e-banking has successfully reduced operating and administrative costs [2,40]. Cost savings have helped e-based banks offer lower or no service fees, and offer higher interest rates on interest-bearing accounts than traditional banks [41,42].

Conclusion and Recommendation

This research seeks to make an original contribution to knowledge by investigating the impact of e-banking factors on outcomes of customer satisfaction in the commercial banks industry in Jordan. This research contributes to the services marketing discipline in finding out the role of the e-banking in enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Factors pertaining to accessibility, convenience, security, privacy, content, design, speed, fees and charges were a focus of this study as they have an influence on customer satisfaction.

Contributions found will be beneficial for both academics and managers alike. Academically, this work aims to focus academic attention upon a much neglected domain-the marketing and information technology of banking services in Jordan. There is currently a distinct lack of studies in academia relating to research in the Middle East. This is somewhat surprising when considering that Jordan has been at the forefront of the banking services industry in the Middle East. In fact, the banking services industry is an important and vibrant sector in Jordan and banks are considered as an important segment of the financial services provider where customers can receive a wide range of financial services.

Although this research has provided valuable insights into a somewhat scant area of research, it has been subject to some limitations. To begin with, there were some difficulties in the distribution of the research questionnaire within the customers of Jordanian commercial banks, possibly leading to some inconsistencies in the data collection process. For example, a portion of banks opted to distribute the instrument to respondents themselves, where in other cases the researcher delivered the survey to respondents individually. In addition, this research has been conducted within a single service industry and exclusively in the Jordanian commercial banks sector, thus limiting the generalizability of the research results to the foreign banks and other financial organizations in Jordan.

Future Research

The study was conducted at a specific point in time, the researcher therefore recommends a longitudinal study possibly covering the entire banking industry and in the entire country. In this the researchers needs to put in mind the challenges they may encounter including, the wide geographical span of the bank.