Purpose This paper aims to examine the determinant factors that influence the adoption of mobile banking by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Palestine. The aim of this paper has supported with the objectives to identify the role of mobile banking practices in enhancing sustainable growth and development of Palestine SMEs; determining the factors that influencing the SMEs as a service and products providers’ intention to adopt mobile banking and proposing a conceptual model for adoption mobile banking development by SMEs sectors in Palestine Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses were developed guided by the technology organisation-environment (TOE) model. The primary data was collected from 408 SMEs in Palestine using questionnaires and 8 interviews. Findings The empirical results are based on partial least squares analysis and statistical package for the social sciences. The findings presented in this paper reveal that SMEs factors, enabling environment and business model are the main determinant factors affecting the intention to adopt mobile banking by the SMEs sector in Palestine. Practical implications The main contribution of this study is the concise identification of the obstacles and facilitators to SMEs’ mobile banking, especially in developing countries. A suggestion for further study was made. The findings could be useful to policymakers, government institutions and agencies especially in Palestine and other development partners in designing and directing their policy intervention. Originality/value This study contributes significantly to the theoretical understanding of mobile banking through the development of a mobile banking framework for the SMEs’ sector in Palestine. A major contribution of this study is to the existing knowledge and literature in mobile banking by developing a TOE framework for providers (supply-side) factors in general and in particular in Palestine to fill the gaps in past studies.

This study reviews literature on mobile banking adoption in organizations to identify its influential factors and its operationalization in prior literature. We classify the factors that influence mobile banking adoption using the three contexts suggested by the Technology, Organization and Environment (TOE) framework, namely, technology, organization, and environment. The finding suggests that the influences of these factors vary across studies and most of the studies have operationalized mobile banking adoption using intention to adopt mobile banking or binary variable, rather than the actual use of the technology.

This paper investigates reason for the nonutilization of mobile banking by SMEs sectors in Palestine using a survey of 408 SMEs. The results of the study indicate that majority of Palestine SMEs are using computerized systems and utilizes basic ICT technologies, while the use of mobile banking are less than 30%. However, there are key factors that inhibit these SMEs from effectively utilizing mobile banking in their various businesses. The survey reveals that understanding of mobile banking adoption is very little among the SMEs business owner’s, regulatory environment, mobile banking business model offered by banks are the most prevalent factors for non-utilizations of mobile banking.