eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY This thesis aims to investigate factors influencing customers’ usage of internet banking and their perception towards these factors. This thesis applies the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) developed by Davis (1989) and adds new variables: perceived risk, perceived enjoyment, and perceived self-efficacy to examine how each variable impact on customers’ usage of internet banking. This thesis also provides an extensive review of studies examining factors influencing customers’ bank selection and their perception of bank service quality across a large number of countries.

DATA This thesis uses 107 primary data collected from online survey distributed in March 2010 to groups of students in Aalto University and business professionals. The survey consists of 25 questions, of which 6 are mainly multiple choices and 19 are seven-point likert-type questions.

RESULTS The main findings of this thesis are that perceived usefulness has the strongest impact on customers’ usage of internet banking, followed by perceived ease of use. Respondents express confidence in their ability to use internet banking services independently and feel generally secure in using internet banking especially when they have more control over the channel. Respondents view internet banking as less interesting and use it usually when needed. Female respondents value perceived ease of use more importantly than males.

The top three banks Nordea, OP, and Sampo are perceived to perform equally well in terms of perceived usefulness, ease of use, enjoyment, and risk. High-usage respondents have significantly more positive perception than low-usage respondents in the flexibility, easiness of password and online instruction, security, and interestingness of internet banking. Finnish respondents view internet banking as more flexible and less interesting than Chinese respondents and Chinese respondents have more need for assistance when using internet banking. Elder users hold more positive perceptions than younger users in the control, flexibility, and general secureness of the internet banking.