The Effect of Trust in Banking Institutions on Behavioural Intentions for E-Services

Abstract

The adoption rate of electronic banking services (e-services) by consumers has increased significantly in recent years. For example, in the European Union, according to EUROSTAT data, the rate of individuals using the internet for internet banking increased by more than 25% between 2012 and 2023 (Eurostat, 2024). This may be due to several factors: the evolution of technology, the COVID-19 pandemic period, the time needed to complete a transaction, the availability of services, etc. The main objective of this paper was to assess whether trust in banking institutions can influence consumers' behavioural intentions when discussing the use of e-services. The following dimensions were considered to measure trust in the banking unit: Ability, Integrity, Benevolence (Bhattacherjee, 2002). A scale with the following dimensions was also used to measure behavioural intentions: loyalty, switch, pay more, external response (Zeithaml et al., 1996). The relationships were tested both between the "trust" and "behavioural intentions" dimensions taken as a whole and between the "trust" dimension taken separately and the "behavioural intentions" dimension taken as a whole. To achieve the objective of this study, the author collected data from 500 respondents in Romania via an online questionnaire. The surveys were conducted between April and August 2022. Partial least squares (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis. The PLS-SEM results confirmed the significance of three out of four direct relationships. For one of the hypotheses, the dimension "integrity" was removed from the proposed conceptual model due to preliminary tests. These findings can help credit institutions to take various measures to increase public trust in such institutions and encourage the use of e-banking services. The areas targeted by these measures include: financial education programmes; corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns; transaction security; quality of banking staff; and transparency of credit institutions. For future research, it would be valuable to know what results can be obtained in other geographical areas. It is recommended to adapt and create new scales that can measure trust in companies and consumer behavioural intentions. These tools can help companies develop in their industries.