Expectations of IT savvy banking customers

Abstract

The banking industry across the globe has witnessed a revolution in the last decade in its efforts to meet the ever growing customer demands. The advancement of technology has encouraged many sectors to move across markets to position themselves as Multinationals and the Sri Lankan banking sector is no different. Due to ever growing demands of the customers and the continuous analysis of customer demands in order to anticipate future needs, segmentation of markets to exploit niches have driven the banks to rely heavily on technology thereby crowding the markets with many products and services. Sri Lankan banks are continuing to introduce innovative electronic banking solutions; however, the question is, how much of these electronic banking solutions are actually used by the customer. It is commonly argued that these electronic banking services are ideally suitable to be marketed among professionals who have access to internet and mostly based in the Colombo district. This study was conducted on banking customers living and working in Colombo district and has access to internet in order to study whether the key expectation of the retail banking customer is “electronic-based, convenient banking solution”. A survey was conducted and results obtained from 404 banking customers were analysed to understand the expectations of customers. Results of the survey reveal that the top most expectations of customers are accurate and secure services. The ATM is ranked as the third most important factor and usage is 80%. Therefore, the research concludes that the professionals who have access to internet and mostly based in the Colombo district expect the bank to provide a high level of service more than the electronic-based solutions itself.