E-Banking in Bangladesh

Executive Summary

This research will find out the factors influencing the user acceptance of e-banking in Bangladesh. Theoretical framework is based on Technology Adoption Model (TAM), which says that customers accept a new technology based on two things - perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. This research will be conducted taking these two factors as independent variable and users' acceptance as dependent variable. Two hypotheses are formulated for the research purpose. Data will be collected through online survey using structured questionnaire, where 150 e-banking users will be selected through random sampling. SPSS and Microsoft excel will be used to analyze the data. First, reliability and validity of the data will be checked. Then multiple regression analysis will be used to find out the impact of the independent variables on the dependent variable.

Problem Statement

E-banking is becoming more widespread and popular in Bangladesh. As on October 31, 2015, number of internet banking customers was 1,550,101. In addition, the number of daily transaction stood at more than 19,000 amounting to Tk. 59 crore. Now, the total number of internet users in Bangladesh stands at around 4 Crore (Thedailystar.net, 2016). So, the internet banking has a huge expansion opportunity.

There are several factors that influence a customer to accept e-banking. For example - perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived credibility, perceived risk, customer attitude etc. It is very important for the commercial banks to identify what are the influential factors, so that they stay in competition and provide better service to the customers. Many research works were conducted throughout the world but no research was conducted in Bangladesh to find out which factors are influencing Bangladeshi customers.

Research Objective

The purpose of this research is to find out whether the selected factors have influence on the user acceptance of e-banking in Bangladesh or not. Specifically, we will use two factors as independent variables and will find out if these factors have impact on the user acceptance, which is our dependent variable. The independent variables are - perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were identified by Davis in 1989, which is popularly known as Technology Adoption Model (TAM). To find out the impact of independent variables on dependant variable, two hypotheses are developed.

Hypothesis 1

H1: Perceived usefulness has a positive influence on user acceptance of e-banking in Bangladesh.

Hypothesis 2

H2: Perceived ease of use has a positive influence on user acceptance of e-banking in Bangladesh.

Importance of the Study

E-banking is important for the commercial banks because by combining technology with banking, they can generate more profit and can give tough competitions to the competitors. E-banking started its journey in Bangladesh in the beginning of 2010. Among the 64 banks, currently 22 banks offer e-banking facilities (Bankerbd.com, 2015).  In the recent future, other banks will start e-banking facilities to retain existing customers and grab new customers. The number of people using e-banking is also increasing. To stay in the competition, reduce cost and meet global standard, commercial banks need to know what are the reasons for which people accept e-banking, so that they can offer better service than their competitors. The research work will explore some of the factors that are found to be effective in other countries to see if those factors are influencing the user acceptance of e-banking in Bangladesh.