Factors underlying the adoption of online banking by Mexican consumers

Abstract

Although Mexico is considered one of the most important emerging markets in global business, there is little knowledge about the adoption of internet banking in Mexico. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the factors underlying the adoption characteristics of internet (online) banking by Mexican consumers, which will benefit both academics and financial institutions. The paper uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches for research methodology. The qualitative method is used to gain insight into how consumers value online banking by interviewing both adopters and non-adopters of internet banking (hereafter IB). Then, a questionnaire is developed to include thirty-nine questions. The paper utilizes Factor Analysis to identify the characteristics of the adoption and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to examine the differences between adopters and non-adopters’ attitudes toward some attributes of the adoption. The results from Factor Analysis suggest eight characteristics of the adoption, namely difficulty, trust, compatibility, third party concerns, human contact, social influence, security, and computer proficiency. Analysis of Variance shows that adopters and non-adopters differed on their attitudes toward four attributes of the adoption: difficulty, trust, compatibility and human contact. Comparing the attitudes of adopters and non-adopters with the issues of security and third party concerns, the study found no significant differences. An interesting finding was that human or physical contact was considered important for non-adopters, showing the weakness of online banking. A discussion of the results and the implications for bank managers were included in the study.