Customer perceptions of technology-based banking services:Influence of demographic variables

Due to technological advancements and innovation, technology-based banking has gained importance as an alternative means of providing services to customers. As a result the understanding and measuring of service quality of technology-based banking has become an indispensable marketing management imperative to bank managers over the recent years. The aim of this paper was to investigate if there are significant differences on customer perceptions of technology-based banking services by certain demographic variables, namely, age and gender. A structured questionnaire was completed by one hundred and eighty customers (n=180). Using a factor analysis procedure seven factors that influence customer perceptions of online banking service quality were extracted. ANOVA was then applied to examine the differences among the means of the socio-biographic variables with regard to their perceptions of the different service dimensions of technology-based banking services. The study revealed that there were significant differences among the different age groups while no significant differences were observed between males and females. The younger age group (under 20 years) seem to rate the quality of the technology-based banking services lower with respect to the following factors: factor 1 (assurance, trust and appeal), factor 5 (fulfilment) and factor 6 (speed and accuracy). Factor 4 (accessibility), was, however, viewed favourably by this age group. Their older and more mature counterparts (50-59 years old) perceived factor 5 (fulfilment) more favourably than did the younger age cohorts. These findings could be used for monitoring and measuring the service levels of online banking service quality to identify areas of improvement.