Testing the Application of the Technology Acceptance Model in the French Quebecer Banking Environment

Abstract

Current usage and growth rates in the use of e-banking services (Fox 2005) suggest that there is a huge potential in the offer of related Internet banking services in the unique French North American setting. The purpose of this research is to analyze the adoption of online banking services among people in the province of Quebec based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The services offered by Internet banking could include viewing all transactions and all accounts balances in real time, payment of bills, change of money in other currencies, transfers of money, stocks operations, purchase of all kind of insurance, purchase of travel tickets and travel packages, and so forth. The survey instrument was handed out to a convenience sample of full-time students in a Quebecer metropolitan area and received 225 fully useful responses. The model is analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling; the original TAM model presents four latent variables: perceived ease of use; perceived utility; using the Internet for banking operations; attitude towards use of the Internet for banking operations; and the intention of use. We used multi-item scales adapted to the suitability of the research, the instrument was translated in French and a confirmatory factor analysis was also conducted. Some items were deleted on substantive and statistical grounds (Anderson and Gerbing 1988). As the result, only 12 items remained from the base model but all were very significant for p<0.000. Traditional criteria were used to analyze measurement reliability and validity, Cronbach’s alpha values and Average Variance Extracted measures provided evidence of measurement reliability (Nunnally and Bernstein 1994; Fornell and Larcker 1981). The results indicate a reasonably good fit between the model and the observed data, the Int Adv Econ Res (2011) 17:364–365 DOI 10.1007/s11294-011-9305-4