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Top1. Introduction
Online banking and mobile apps of banking sector allow users to, among other advantages, access their accounts from anywhere and at any time (Munoz Leiva et al., 2017). These applications consist of an advantage over traditional banks. Despite all of these, it is important to highlight that the number of customers that operate through online banking has not increased as much as it was expected. Aspects such as the lack of differentiation between banks, lack of trust in the system, impersonal treatment or lack of security have caused reluctance from many customers to use such tools (Muñoz-Leiva et al., 2010). On the other hand, the last 10 years technology has undergone a tremendous progress. The ways of communication have changed radically and everything is easier to be transferred or uploaded (Fenton, 2016). Social media and applications are widely used as they provide numerous services which can make life simpler (Li et al., 2015). Traditional banking services which used to be costly have transformed to adopt this digital-era (Dery et al., 2017).
According to a study conducted by Price Waterhouse (2014) involving 157 managers for technology and systems for financial institutions in 14 major markets in America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific, the weight of digital channels in retail banking will grow significantly in the coming years. The number of mobile banking (or m-banking) users who make purchases through social networks and use online banking will significantly increase, 56% and 37% respectively. This situation will be detrimental to other traditional channels such as bank branches and telephone banking, whose users will fall by 25% and 13% respectively. However, they will not disappear and they will continue to have an important role focused on the most complex banking.
Lee et al. (2003) stated that m-banking apps is an innovation that could become one of m-commerce's value-added apps. Zhou et al. (2010) defined m-banking as the use of mobile devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to access banking networks via the wireless application protocol (WAP). Nowadays, banking industry is at a border of a massive digital transformation and automatization. Many banks tried to keep up one step ahead and launched various initiatives of different scales (Courbe, 2016). Banks are now feeling the full force of digital disruption, which made its presence known a few years ago (Martino and Schaffner, 2015). The implications of such a revolution were unknown and there was no clear direction about the changes required to efficiently weather the transition into the digital world. Nevertheless, many banks tried to keep one step ahead and launched various initiatives of differing scales (Brodsky and Oakes, 2017). Hew et al. (2015) suggested that apps which are easy to use would attract consumers to use them; furthermore, the significant and positive association between effort expectancy and ease of use had also been confirmed, and finally consumers’ perception on the usefulness of apps would directly influenced by the user-friendliness of the apps.
Today's customers are more sophisticated and tech savvy in order to their specific needs, each customer needs a unique experience from banking (Venkateswari, 2018). They want the companies to understand their unstated needs as well as their likes (Härle et al., 2016). Thus, it should come as no surprise that these customers are expecting similar kind of response and service from banking institutions too. From researching new services, opening an account, checking balance, conducting transactions, loans, credits, wealth management, customer support, delivering experience has become a key to success in this competitive market place (Kamra, 2014). As a result of this, banks are becoming more digitally oriented in order to satisfy their customers’ new preferences and demands (Sonono and Ortstad, 2017).