Telebanking Adoption Intentions, Actions and Subjective Norms in the Context of Sri Lankan Private Commercial Banks

Abstract

Telebanking is a service provided by a bank or other financial institution, that enables customers to perform an array of financial transactions over the  telephone. Telebanking offers convenience for customers while facilitating upliftment of customer service standards from the perspective of banks. Meanwhile, subjective norms refer to an individual's perception about the particular behaviour, which is influenced by the judgment of significant others. Similarly, adoption of innovative technologies, is driven by subjective norms, ease of use, behavioural intentions, among other factors. Effect of subjective norms on telebanking adoption intentions and actions, in the context of Sri Lankan private banks is being examined in this study. Respondents were the telebanking facility using students of Uwa Wellassa University. Finally, 279 duly completed questionnaires were considered for the data analysis. Theory of reasoned action used to postulate conceptual framework and dimensions of the variables were measured by five-point Lickert scale. Tests statistics of MANOVA, ANOVA with contrast tests and discriminant function analysis were used. Empirical evidence supported the significance of subjective norms towards intentions and actions on adoption of telebanking, specifying the importance of subjective norm of the friends, in particular. There were restrictions due to limitation of time and other resources and hence, future researches could be performed in different contexts with improved representation of the tele banking population of private commercial banks. Nevertheless, research findings could be used to uplift the status of self-service banking technologies promoted by commercial banks in Sri Lanka although the research has been conducted with special reference to telebanking since most of such services provides almost the similar facilities with different interfaces such as ATMs, telephones, smartphones, personal computers, tabs etc. As the results has emphasized the significance of the effect of subjective norms, commercial banks could make use of social pressure by way of focusing on influencing existing customers towards making referrals to their friends, family members and relations to canvass new customers for mutually rewarding long-term relationship. Finally, practical and theoretical contribution could be recognized by referring to research method and analysis tools given the particular context of the research.