Identification of the factors affecting the acceptance of Mellat Bank’s Internet banking services’ by Iranian customers

Financial institutions offer new banking channels to their customers, as technology adds new dimensions to classic banking systems. One on the most popular online banking technologies is Internet banking. The goal of this article is to obtain a better understanding of Iranian customers’ motivation and behavior with respect to internet banking adoption. In recent years, some Iranian banks have started to offer Internet banking services to their customers. Through using data from a questionnaire survey; demographic, attitudinal, and behavioral characteristics of Internet banking users and non-users of Mellat bank customers from governmental sector are examined. A cluster analysis indicates that customers can be divided into different clusters with distinctive demographic, economic, attitudinal and behavioral traits for each cluster. The majority of the customers are very comfortable and willing to use Internet banking services. They considered online banking to be efficient for ease of use and access. Branch counter was the most frequently adopted channel. The security concerns, lack of technological knowledge and awareness stand out as being obstacles to the adoption of Internet banking services. The data used for the present study shows that distrust in products and their providers appears to be an important component of the perceived risk. The present study identifies a set of factors that are perceived to have impact on internet banking adoption, as a baseline data for further research and an updated account of the Internet banking behaviors of Iranian customers.

Keywords:

e-commerce , behavior , security , transaction , virtual banking , cluster analysis , trust