What obstruct customer acceptance of internet banking? Security and privacy, risk, trust and website usability and the role of moderators

TL;DR

This study identifies perceived trust and website usability as key factors obstructing internet banking acceptance in Sri Lanka, highlighting the limited impact of security, privacy, and perceived risk, with age and gender acting as moderators.

Contribution

It provides a country-specific analysis of factors affecting internet banking acceptance, emphasizing the roles of trust and usability, and explores moderating effects of demographic variables.

Findings

Perceived trust significantly obstructs acceptance.

Website usability is a major concern for customers.

Security, privacy, and perceived risk are less influential.

Abstract

Comparatively a little attention has been paid to the factors that obstruct the acceptance of Internet banking in Sri Lanka. This research assimilates constructs such as security and privacy, perceived trust, perceived risk, and website usability. To test the conceptual model, we collected 186 valid responses from customers who use Internet banking in Sri Lanka. The structural equation modelling technique is applied and hypotheses are validated. The findings show perceived trust and website usability are the possible obstructing factors that highly concerned by Internet banking customers. While security and privacy, and perceived risk are not significant and these are not highly concerned by customers in Internet banking acceptance. The age and gender reveal the moderating effect in each exogenous latent constructs relationship. The practical and managerial implications of the findings are also discussed. This country specific study contributes to the advancement of Internet banking acceptance, and offers some useful insights to researchers, practitioners and policy makers on how to enhance Internet banking acceptance for country similar in context.