English

Ilham Hassan Fathelrahman Mansour

doi:10.5897/ajbm2019.8888

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the key determinant of the bank selection decision by Sudanese banks’ customers. The motivation for this paper is the lack of research that empirically studied bank selection criteria that influence customers' selection decisions on banking services in Sudan. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires to a sample of 253 of Banks customers in Khartoum State. Their responses on the importance of 22 different selection criteria were rated and analyzed. Mean analysis and exploratory factor analysis is applied to rank the most important determinants of bank selection. The main results concluded that Corporal Efficiency is the most important determinant that has influenced the customer's selection decision. Other factors perceived to be important include bank marketing efforts, convenience and service delivery. Research on determinant factors of consumers’ bank selection decision is scarce in Sudan. This study contributes in that direction.   Key words: Selection criteria, banking industry, consumer behavior, Sudan.

Highlights

The rising competition in the banking sector and the similarity of services offered by banks in Sudan makes it critical for the banks to pinpoint the important determinants of bank customers' selection decision
This study aimed to determine the pertinent factors which Sudanese bank customers perceive as important in their bank selection decision
In line with previous similar studies, e.g. Rashid et al, (2009), the most important point revealed by the study is that customer's bank selection decision depends mainly on the bank corporal efficiency in term of 'Trust and Commitments', 'Privacy and Confidentiality', 'efficiency in carrying out transactions', 'efficiency of counter services' and 'Friendly and Responsive attitude of banking staff'

Summary

Introduction

The rising competition in the banking sector and the similarity of services offered by banks in Sudan makes it critical for the banks to pinpoint the important determinants of bank customers' selection decision. Understanding customers’ bank's selection criteria have been argued to be helpful to banks in identifying the appropriate marketing strategies needed to attract new customers and retain existing ones (Kaynak and Kucukemiroglu, 1992). Determinants of bank selection criteria and customer’s bank preferences of Islamic banks have been extensively discussed and various dimensions have been identified in various Islamic countries. A review of the literature indicates that most studies related to bank selection criteria have been mainly conducted in countries with a dual banking system where both conventional and Islamic banking systems exist. Sudan is among the few countries with its financial system built completely according to Islamic principles with 100% Islamic bank services (Chong and Liu, 2009). Since all banks in Sudan work under the Islamic principles “religious” variable is supposed to be constant and will not be considered in this study

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion