The influence of attraction on internet banking: An extension to the trust-relationship commitment model

Abstract

Purpose - This research in this paper aims to investigate and extend the trust-relationship commitment model to an internet banking setting by adding attraction as a new factor. Design/methodology/approach - The paper shows that in testing whether attraction might be related to belief in and use of the internet banking, this research sampled 276 bank customers' responses via a cross-sectional survey in Doha, Qatar. Findings - The findings in the paper indicate that both trust and attraction have significant positive impact on relationship commitment with attraction having a strong positive effect, with communication representing the most important determinant of attraction and having a significant positive relationship with both trust and attraction. Practical implications - The paper shows that, from the managerial perspective, it is necessary for bankers and policy makers to know the relationship between trust and attraction because their influence on the actual commitment is different The findings of this study suggest that, in order to develop trust and to attract more users to internet banking, it is not going to be enough to make the system easy to interact with. It is of paramount importance for banks to develop secured and private internet banking systems that are trustworthy, for their users. Thus, management attention might be fruitfully focused on the development of such beliefs on the part of the users. Thus, the internet banking authorities should employ training and promotion approaches to develop customers' beliefs of shared value, communication, and opportunistic behavior, which in turn will influence or attract the customers' behavioural intention to utilize internet banking services. Similarly, banks may consider offering a low-cost service by passing on some of their gains from reduced operating cost to customers. This may lead to better customer loyalty towards the service. Originality/value - The paper finds that attraction as an additional factor in a trust-relationship commitment model has not been examined before. Thus, researchers should include attraction in online relationship banking models along with other relationship effects. Also, bankers and policy makers need to develop trust among the customers and to realize that more favorable communication environments must be created to attract customers and to make them more committed to using online banking transactions over the internet.