Consumer perspectives about online banking and ATMs adoption in Lebanon

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to explore the factors that influence the Lebanese consumers' perception regarding the c-banking services and to segment and profile the users using the retrieved factors. Design/methodology/approach – A post-positivist epistemology and a deductive reasoning approach were adopted in this research. An online survey was administrated and 323 responses were collected. A factor analysis, regression analysis tests, non-parametric tests and a cluster analysis test were performed using Excel, SPSS, and EViews. Findings – The qualitative findings of this research showed that respondents are still doing too many banking operations at the bank. The quantitative findings showed that the significant variables could be grouped into five factors labelled: perceived ease of use, perceived security, perceived convenience, perceived freedom in usage, and e-banking trend. Moreover, it was found that some of the e-banking services are rarely performed in Lebanon. The respondents were segmented into three clusters that had different demographic characteristics and e-banking adoption perceptions. Research limitations/implications – In this research, it was hard to find many old respondents who use the e-banking technology. Moreover, most of the banks that respondents dealt with were alpha banks, so the categories of the banks were not proportionally diversified. Practical implications – The results of this research offer bank managers better knowledge about the factors influencing e-banking adoption in Lebanon and the typical e-banking clusters. Moreover, this research provides ideas for banking professionals to customize their services to meet customers 'needs. Originality/value – This research is one of the few researches in Lebanon that explores the ATMs and online banking adoption and then segment the users accordingly.