EFFECT OF MOBILE BANKING ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION (CASE STUDY OF UNIVERSITY OF MAIDUGURI STUDENTS)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Mobile banking is a unique change that has simultaneously rendered itself in pervasive ways cutting across various financial institutions and other sectors of the economy. In this 21st century, mobile banking has graduated from providing mere text messaging services to that of spurious internet banking where customers could not only view their balances and set up multiple types of alerts but also transaction activities such as fund transfers, deposit cash via the mobile phone and instruct payroll based transactions (Vaidya, 2011). Technology advancement has greatly played a vital role in improving the standards of service delivery in the financial institution sector. Gone are days when customers would line up in the banking halls waiting to pay their utility bills, school fees or any other financial transactions. They can just do this now at their convenience by using their ATM cards or through the internet from the comfort of their homes. Also due to the massive growth of the mobile phone industry most financial institution sectors have gone into the untapped opportunity and have partnered with mobile phone network providers to offer banking services to their clients. The revolution of mobile phone has changed the lives of many Africans, providing not just communications but also basic financial access in the form of phone-based money transfer and storage (Jonathan & Camilo, 2012; Demombynes & Thegeya, 2012). The high growth and penetration rates of mobile telephony that is transforming cell phones into pocket-banks in Africa is providing opportunities for countries on the continent to increase affordable and cost effective means of bringing on board a large chunk of the population that hitherto has been excluded from formal financial services for decades hence increasing their profitability . Such a transformation is of interest not only to banks and Micro Financial Institutions (MFIs) but also to governments, financial regulators as well as development partners who are providing support to improve the livelihoods and achieve sustained economic growth. Mobile banking is evolving as the new front on which banks can differentiate their service delivery. Banks and other financial services companies have an opportunity to generate new business, attract or retain customers, control costs, and gain other advantages by deploying applications for mobile phone users (Johnstone, 2010). The mobile banking platform allows increased penetration by banks to areas not viable for physical presence that involves huge investments in physical infrastructure. Financial institutions such as banks are also able to sell more services to their customers through mobile banking thus increasing the banks’ share of wallet. Further, the banks most valuable customers, who constitute about 20% of all customers and account for about 80% of the banks business, can be retained through the increased efficiency and value brought about by mobile banking, according to Mas and Kumar (2012), it is very difficult to have individual services unique to a bank because they are easily replicable. He argues that the important thing is to ‘embed the non-unique services within a unique customer experience’. With informational and transactional capability in customers’ pockets (the mobile-as-Internet machine), banks may be able to propose new services to their customers in a much more targeted way. Banks also can fully exploit the immediacy of the mobile environment to extend the benefits of control and choice, and hence convenience, across their entire product range (the “new way to interact” view). Costs of service can also be significantly reduced through adoption of mobile banking. This is because of the ‘self service’ capabilities brought about by mobile banking, as well as the non use of stationery, man hours and other physical resources. Various services can be offered through mobile banking. These include funds transfers, bank alerts, service requests, information inquiries, and bill payment. Nowadays, Banks have greatly converted from the conventional use of banking to no branch positions of banking. The most recent adoption of using technology has aided banks to enlarge their customer base, while electronic banking has shown to be the main advancement. Mobile banking services are grouped as the newest development in electronic bank services, while the bank customers can review: Balance inquiry, credit transfer, check account, SMS, payment transaction and other businesses according to banks instruction that are sent to their mobile phones (Saleem & Rashid, 2011). From customers’ side the benefits of mobile banking service in terms of convenience to execute banking transactions in anytime, anywhere and easy way to use. Hence, Security is ensured, as banking transactions are encrypted and password-protected. Recently, the rapidly growth of using technology by phones helped banks to achieve their goals. Internet banking and mobile banking are often referred to electronic banking; internet banking and mobile banking are two alternative channels for banks to deliver their services for customers in order to acquire services. This is to say, the reason of using customers Internet banking are through computers connected to Internet, while customers using mobile banking are through wireless devices. Making use of Mobile banking through wireless makes the difference between online banking and mobile banking contexts while customers sees mobility as the most interesting characteristics of mobile banking that also time-critical consumers considered always-on functionality as the most important feature of mobile banking. In addition, banking users considered that Internet banking took the importance advantage in Usefulness While online banking was considered as the cheapest delivery channel. Millions of people access to the Internet through mobile phones. Moreover, transactions use increased by new technological services such as: Wireless application protocol (WAP), Bluetooth, 3G standard (Khraim et al., 2011). Mobile banking may help to increase satisfaction by innovation services that have no limitation on time and place in order to add more value to the customer. Custumer’s satisfaction with the bank is expected to increase their willingness to make more online transactions. Therefore this will increase their confidence with the bank which will directly put positive effect on bank’s customer relationship.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Commercial Banks want to achieve a competitive position in the domestic and global market, through build a strong relationship with customers by provision a new services with good quality and high secure, so banks should invest and reload their information technology to present a services to get confidence and satisfaction that customer aspires through Mobile banking services. In developed nations show that smart phone penetration is higher and there are already more than 1.08 billion Smartphone users in the world, Statistics showed that the proportion of using smart phones amounted to 42% of the domestic market, while 61% of Smartphone owners use mobile application (arabadvisors, 2013). The power of mobile banking show the utilization of multiple mobile banking channels to understand what mobile tools will need to become the premium choice for all banking activities. Jepleting (2013) studied the effects of mobile banking on customer satisfaction with Specific interest on Equity bank of Eldoret town. This narrowed the study to only customers of Equity bank in the town. From the above discussions, it is evident that not much research has focused on the economic implication of mobile banking as a strategy for customer satisfaction on Commercial Banks. This research therefore aimed at bridging the gap. To achieve this, this study sought to establish the effect of mobile banking as a strategy for customer satisfaction of university of Maiduguri students.

1.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The major aim of the study is to examine effect of mobile banking on customer satisfaction. Other specific objectives of the study include;

1. To examine the concept of ease of product use and customer satisfaction. 
2. To examine importance of mobile banking services to university of Maiduguri students.
3. To examine the impact of Mobile Banking services on enhancing customers’ satisfaction
4. To examine the relevance of technology proficiency when using mobile banking platforms on customer satisfaction.
5. To examine the relationship between mobile banking and customer satisfaction of university of Maiduguri students.
6. To give recommendations and suggestions to the management of banks on mobile banking services in order to enhance the customers satisfaction.
   1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What is the concept of ease of product use and customer satisfaction?
2. What is the importance of mobile banking services to university of Maiduguri students?
3. What is the impact of Mobile Banking services on enhancing customers’ satisfaction of university of Maiduguri students?
4. What is the relevance of technology proficiency when using mobile banking platforms on customer satisfaction?
5. What is the relationship between mobile banking and customer satisfaction of university of Maiduguri students?
6. What are the recommendations and suggestions to the management of banks on mobile banking services in order to enhance the customers’ satisfaction?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Hypothesis 1

H0: There is no significant impact of Mobile Banking services on enhancing customers’ satisfaction of university of Maiduguri students.

H1: There is a significant impact of Mobile Banking services on enhancing customers’ satisfaction of university of Maiduguri students.

Hypothesis 2

H0: There is no significant relationship between mobile banking and customer satisfaction of university of Maiduguri students.

H1: There is a significant relationship between mobile banking and customer satisfaction of university of Maiduguri students.

1. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study would be of benefit to researchers, academicians, policy makers and the banking sector in general.. The study would also be of immense benefit to students, researchers and scholars who are interested in developing further studies on the subject matter.

1. SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The study is restricted to effect of mobile banking on customer satisfaction.

1. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Financial constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview)

Time constraint: The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1. DEFINITION OF TERMS

Mobile Banking: This is the use of mobile phones in carrying out financial transactions. Timaru and Buse (2011) define mobile banking as the provision and availing of banking and financial services with the use of mobile telecommunication devices.

Banking: Banking is the service of saving, sending and receiving of funds from the institution of a bank. Banking provides the liquidity needed for families and businesses to invest for the future through Bank loans and credit. It also provides a safe place for deposits ( Kimberly, 2016).

Customer Satisfaction: This is the value or utility drawn by customers from products offered by financial institutions. The key drivers of customer satisfaction as relates to mobile banking are 9 mobile convenience, followed by accuracy, diverse mobile application features, ease of use and content (Minjoon & Sergio, 2016)

Mobile-banking Service Quality: This is the excellence and worth of service provided to customers on mobile banking platforms (Ayo, Oni, Adewoye, & Eweoya, 2016)

Ease of Product Use: This is the simplicity with which customers conduct transactions on the mobile banking platforms (Carlos & Tiago, 2016)

Technology Proficiency: This is the knowledge that the customer has when using mobile phone technology, as well as, mobile banking platforms (Sylvie & Xiaoyan, 2010)

Consumer Attitudes:  These are the outlooks that customers have on mobile banking platforms offered by financial institutions (Carlos & Tiago, 2016)