Introduction
The advancement of data and communication technology provides a new possibility for developing company strategies centered on client value co-creation. This is especially noticeable in the financial sector, more specifically, the banking field. In this situation, the competitive process can be aided by e-banking operations. Financial services are currently evolving in tandem with technological advancements. Clients always had to come directly to the financial institution to perform activities with their money. However, with the progress of technologies, the same actions were allowed to be done distantly with the help of electronic banking (e-banking).
Today, e-banking implies a financial information system provided by the bank using modern wireless technology to facilitate the quick and easy conduct of financial transactions. The objective of this paper is to investigate the field of electronic banking and explore the correlation between e-banking and customer satisfaction. The significance of our study is in the critical issues of e-banking and the areas of improvement that the banks can eliminate or improve to boost customer satisfaction. To increase customer satisfaction with e-banks, businesses must increase the following factors: speed of operations, dependability, safety and confidentiality, and a client-oriented approach.
Literature Review
In the last 10-20 years, financial institutions have significantly moved from traditional financing to E-banking (Khatoon, Zhengliang, and Hussain, 2020). The waves of development and technical breakthroughs aided banks in expanding their number of clients and E-banking products, which paved the way for financial services to flourish and become more accessible (Khatoon, Zhengliang, and Hussain, 2020). Clients now can see watch their account balances, perform cash transactions, deposit accounts, text, and transfer payments to other individuals and companies using directions supplied to their smartphones by institutions.
Electronic banking is also known as internet or mobile banking. These are platforms that banks may use to offer clients easier access to services (Nurhadi and Ilfitriah, 2020). Namely, a client utilizing online banking does so via a computer connected to the internet, while a consumer using banking apps does so using a smartphone or tablet (Khatoon, Zhengliang, and Hussain, 2020). According to Khatoon, Zhengliang, and Hussain (2020), wireless usage of e-banking demonstrates the distinction between the two types of banking settings, while users consider flexibility to be among the most crucial characteristic of the electronic banking business. The most important aspect of electronic banking is its dependability (Haq and Awan, 2020). More significantly, bank consumers think that important online financial institutions are being utilized, even though digital banking is the least expensive route.
Customer Satisfaction
Client satisfaction is among the essential topics in consumer research nowadays. In general, it connects buying process to post-buying phenomena, including attitude adjustment, purchase frequency, and brand recognition (Al Ali, 2021). According to Hammoud, Bizri, and El Baba (2018), a sense of pleasure occurs when consumers share their impression of the goods or services and when their experiences align with the expectations. Thus, satisfaction levels correlate directly with the work of banks’ apps and services.
Define consumer satisfaction, a variety of definitions have been presented. Nonetheless, the concept of evaluating service execution and assumptions appears to be shared by most interpretations. Hammoud, Bizri, and El Baba (2018) describe satisfaction as a favorable post-purchase assessment judgment about a good or service. Likewise, Banu, Mohamed, and Parayitam (2019) described client satisfaction as a customer reaction to the appraisal of the observed gap between hopes and outcomes after usage. Satisfaction may also be defined as the result of a post-purchase evaluation of a service or good as opposed to the prior-buying stage’s expectations.
Other studies, contrary to this, have discovered that the influence exercised throughout the purchase and consuming stages of the goods or services may also have a significant effect on the user’s judgments of contentment. Therefore, client satisfaction is a consumer’s experience of joy or unhappiness after comparing an item’s or service’s effectiveness to their expectations (Carranza et al., 2021). Following these criteria and the context of this study, client satisfaction is the overall user’s perspective formed in reaction to utilizing any type of E-Banking service. As a result, E-Banking qualities may enhance, decline, or maintain the same level of client contentment.
Customer Satisfaction and E-Banking
With a variety of research pointing to a link between e-banking customer experience and customer happiness, the issue lies within the definition of services of products that make customers increasingly happy and satisfied. According to our study’s examination of the literature, the following factors play an immense role in client satisfaction: speed of operations, dependability, safety and confidentiality, and a client-oriented approach (Usman, Monoarfa, and Marsofiyati, 2020). With the proper combination of these elements, an e-banking organization will be able to increase the level of customer satisfaction. Additionally, to create a bigger client base, Alabsy (2018) advises banks to make a more extensive awareness of the service ambiguity.
The speed of operations implies the speed of money transfers, payments, money withdrawals, or money deposits. Dependability in this situation can be described as the overall reliability of the app and the safety of its usage. Additionally, safety and confidentiality prove to play a significant role in the evaluation of satisfaction levels. In case an organization has a bad reputation and a scandalous record, the level of trust in the company can significantly decline. The last factor, the client-oriented approach, is responsible for the quick response of the support team. Proper responses from support teams can change the attitudes of clients drastically.
Methodology
The given research is based on the qualitative approach, which focuses on the accumulation and analysis of the retrieved information. Among the chosen variables were the e-banks such as PayPal Bank, WebMoney Bank, and Payoneer Bank. The selected sample was a group of five people who willingly decided to participate in the study and share their opinions on their experiences while testing the banks mentioned above, specifically their services. The selected group analyzed in one day and shared their results via a Google platform.
As has been mentioned, the analyzed literature has defined the following elements like the ones that contribute to client satisfaction from e-banks: speed of operations, dependability, safety and confidentiality, and a client-oriented approach. Therefore, the group of volunteers has been asked to test the apps of the banks and rate the given variables from 1 to 5, which in further stages of the research helped understand the correlation between the mentioned factors and the level of satisfaction. To collect the data correctly, a platform such as Google Forms was utilized.
According to the findings, the e-bank WebMoney Bank provided the lowest results and, therefore, did not lead to customer satisfaction. On the other hand, all five participants gave PayPal Bank the highest rates for speed of operations, dependability, safety and confidentiality, and a client-oriented approach. Therefore, the findings indicated that these factors influenced client satisfaction drastically. Nevertheless, the conducted research contains limitations, which could lead to low-quality results. Among the limitations is the sample size which might be considered insufficient for robust statistical data. Moreover, the chosen individuals could be biased towards the mentioned e-banks, which could lead to the distortion of the evidence. Lastly, time constraints also played a key role in determining the success of the research.
Conclusion
Hence, nowadays, a significant number of businesses allow their consumers to access almost all of their services and products via multiple channels, notably electronic banking. From this perspective, the usage of e-banking by financial institution consumers is seen as a significant achievement and has been thoroughly investigated in many kinds of research. Decades ago clients had to go directly to the financial institution and today everything can be accessed via smartphones and other gadgets. Yet, while more and more services are being offered to consumers, the key is client satisfaction, which can be defined by several factors.
According to the analyzed studies, among the factors that play the most prominent role in client satisfaction speed of operations, dependability, safety and confidentiality, and a client-oriented approach are the leading elements. To compare the given information with reality, research was conducted with the help of five participants. The testes banks, PayPal Bank, WebMoney Bank, and Payoneer Bank, revealed that the leading e-platform is PayPal Bank, whose factors were proven to be high-quality and led to client satisfaction.
Reference List
Alabsy, N. (2018) ‘The impact of electronic banking services on customer satisfaction in the Sudanese banking sector’, International Business Research, 11(6), pp. 102–109.
Al Ali, R. M. S. S. (2021) ‘Customer affecting-satisfaction factors in electronic banking systems: three significantly selected research perspectives’ Iraqi Journal of Science, pp. 271–275.
Banu, A. M., Mohamed, N. S., and Parayitam, S. (2019) ‘Online banking and customer satisfaction: evidence from India’, Asia-Pacific Journal of Management Research and Innovation, 15(1-2), pp. 68–80.
Carranza, R., DÃaz, E., Sánchez-Camacho, C. and MartÃn-Consuegra, D. (2021) ‘E-Banking adoption: an opportunity for customer value co-creation’, Frontiers in Psychology, 11, pp. 1–10.
Hammoud, J., Bizri, R.M. and El Baba, I. (2018) ‘The impact of e-banking service quality on customer satisfaction: evidence from the Lebanese banking sector’, Sage Open, 8(3), pp. 1–12.
Haq, I. U., and Awan, T. M. (2020) ‘Impact of e-banking service quality on e-loyalty in pandemic times through interplay of e-satisfaction’, Journal of Management, 17(1), pp. 39–55.
Khatoon, S., Zhengliang, X., and Hussain, H. (2020) ‘The Mediating Effect of customer satisfaction on the relationship between Electronic banking service quality and customer’ Sage Open, 10(2), pp. 1–12.
Nurhadi, M., and Ilfitriah, A. M. (2020) ‘The understanding customer satisfaction on internet banking: a case study in Indonesia’, Jurnal Organisasi dan Manajemen, 16(1), pp. 36–46.
Usman, O., Monoarfa, T., and Marsofiyati, M. (2020) ‘E-Banking and mobile banking effects on customer satisfaction’, Accounting, 6(6), pp. 1117–1128.