An Empirical Investigation on Customer Attitude and Intention Towards Internet Banking: A Case of Licensed Commercial Banks in Colombo District, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Internet banking has become one of the most important and modern applications that has witnessed a substantial expansion during the last decade. This study investigates customer attitude towards Internet banking of six Licensed Commercial Banks (LCBs) in the Colombo district selecting 20 customers from each based on convenient sampling technique. Literature review suggests that there are four major factors that determine the attitude towards Internet banking, namely; (i) perceived ease of use, (ii) perceived usefulness, (iii) perceived risk and (iv) subjective norms. The research follows quantitative approach to investigate the impact of customer attitude on Internet banking. A survey has been undertaken by administering a self-structured questionnaire for a sample of 120 customers from the branches of the six largest LCBs in Sri Lanka which are located in the Colombo district. The results indicate that there is a strong positive influence from perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness factors on attitude towards Internet banking, and this reveals that customers search for easiness and usefulness when using Internet banking. In contrast, perceived risk and subjective norms have become unimportant factors in determining attitude towards Internet banking. This study also tests the association between attitude and intention to use Internet banking. The findings suggest an insignificant negative relationship between customer attitude and intention. This indicates that the majority of the customers depend on traditional channels to carry out their banking operations despite positive attitude towards Internet banking.