Kettering University business professor Dr. Thomas Ngniatedema is following the transition in banking from in-person to online and now to mobile devices and is attempting to determine the crucial factors leading to the adoption of this new technology.

Ngniatedema, along with his research partners Abdou Illia and Zhentu Huang at Eastern Illinois University, have a created an alternative model to explain the user adoption rate of mobile banking.

“In the online banking environment, we look at the adoption rate among users and determine the factors that motivate people to adopt online banking,” Ngniatedema said. “We gathered the supporting literature and identified the most important factors motivating or discouraging people from adopting online banking.”

The model takes into account psychological barriers for conducting transactions in an online environment and factored in other marketing and psychology theories that may alter the rate of which users adopt new technologies. The model also accounts for factors such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, critical mass and rate of adoption across different demographics. The model, which was presented and won the best paper award at the Academy of Business Research conference in New Orleans in March 2014, is the first step to determining the challenges and obstacles users face during transitions in their banking habits.

“We are at the data collection phase and we will analyze this data when we have a good representative sample to determine which factor has the most influential power,” Ngniatedema said. “This is something to uncover when the data is analyzed. We have the conceptual framework which will be validated when the data is available.”

Ngniatedema and his research team are soliciting data from the big banks, local credit unions and through user surveys. Once the collection phase is terminated, the data will be analyzed to determine which factors in the models have the greatest impact on users’ adoption rate.

“Our hypothesis is already established using some widely recognized technology implementation success factors,” Ngniatedema said. “People in the industry are always looking for new results. This is going to raise awareness and increase marketing efforts when they see the factor that has the most influential power for adoption of online and mobile banking.” 

The model is presented in two terms – theoretical and practical – and Ngniatedema hopes to continue that divergence as he pursues publication of the paper outlining the model in order to ensure quality information and data for both academics and the banking industry. 

“This research is useful for stakeholders [banking community], and we hope it’s going to raise awareness and be turned into something productive,” Ngniatedema said.