E-banking Acceptance: An empirical study of Cameroonian Customers

Information technology has long been a significant research area. However, its nature has changed considerably since the internet became prominent just over a decade ago. There have been many studies (Chiemeke et al.,2006; Cletus, 2012, Mirabel, 2017, Inegbedion et al., 2019), with proposed theories and models relating to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) worldwide. The emergence of new technologies has revolutionised the way companies interact, engage, and build relationships with customers. Internet / online banking and electronic banking (or e-banking) mean the same thing and are used interchangeably in this research.

This thesis aims at determining the issues concerning electronic banking acceptance by Cameroonian customers and discuss the implications thereof. As technology continues to grow, awareness increases and there is a need for financial institutions to understand their customers, their technological and digital knowledge, and the factors people consider before accepting e-banking. To achieve this, this research addresses three important questions.

The factors found to influence acceptance include demographic factors such as age, income, occupation, income, and level of education. Other factors include trust, accessibility, ease of use, security and privacy, and customer satisfaction. From these factors, seven hypotheses were developed and answered. Unlike the past researches carried out in Cameroon, this research aims at tailoring the factors that affect electronic banking acceptance to the targeted population. Consider this as a puzzle, where factors need to be acknowledged and elaborated on, investigated and tailored solutions which works for Cameroonians, banks in Cameroon and financial institutions.

The practical significance of this study is that it will help banks to refine their market strategies and enhance their electronic banking services. This research could also help bank managers to manipulate their most important factors accordingly to improve customer understanding and customer acceptance of internet banking. The main purpose of this research is to tailor the factors that enable e-banking acceptance and adoption to the Cameroonian people. By so doing, all other factors which may work for other countries will be eliminated and only factors which works for Cameroonians will be recommended. This way, financial institutions will be able to modify their banking systems based on the targeted population (Cameroonians). This is because past researchers like Mirabel (2017), listed general factors which affected e-banking acceptance in Cameroon, but when researched on, these factors did not directly target Cameroonians.

Quantitative analysis was used to process data using SPSS and the results were discussed in terms of their academic contributions. The challenges and barriers that affect internet banking acceptance are identified and include the cost of opening bank accounts, low income, lack of knowledge, cost of monthly bank fees, lack of e-law legislation, and slow internet services. The findings from this thesis provides the banks with more information on electronic banking, and how they can improve their services.

The study further highlights implications and makes a significant contribution across all banking sectors in Cameroon. Data was collected from customers using questionnaires. This led to the decision to base the study on the well-known TAM with extensions to make it more relevant for a developing country such as Cameroon, whose environment is significantly different from that of the western countries where the technology originated. Interviews were conducted with bank employees to get more insight into e-banking in Cameroon. These interviews however were done to help the researcher gain more insight into the banking system in Cameroon.

Although this study was conducted at a particular site and with the use of certain variables, the findings from this paper can be implemented in other countries, both developing and developed, and can be generalised to Cameroon in the broad spectrum of internet application.