Assessing internet banking success in Stanbic Uganda Holdings (U) Limited

Abstract

Introduction: Despite Stanbic Uganda Holdings Limited’s efforts to improve the internet banking success, the success of internet banking has continued to remain poor. The Stanbic Uganda Holdings Limited Annual report (2021) shows heavy investments totaling to more than two billion shillings but failing to achieve the 80% usage of the digital platforms including Internet banking. This study sought to examine internet banking success in Stanbic Uganda Holdings Limited.

Methods: The study adopted a cross-sectional and descriptive research design. Furthermore, quantitative data was also considered in this study. The study population was 111671 clients from 14 branches in Kampala and the sample was 14 branches and 384 clients. These were obtained using simple random sampling. Primary data was collected directly from the staff. This was through the questionnaires. The tools and data passed the validity and reliability tests respectively (success 0.90, 0.93), challenges (0.80, 0.86), and strategies (0.75, 0.74). SPSS version 23.0 was used for data analysis.

Results: The study obtained 252 out of 384 (66%) response. The study has revealed that internet banking supports online auctions, online shopping and other e-commerce applications, the bank has a user-friendly online platform, there was flexibility in the bank’s internet services, the services of Stanbic bank are better than those of other competing banks, it was generally perceived that the bank’s services were easy to use; regarding challenges, there is still a perception that internet banking is risky, clients had cases of data loss and or data transaction attacks, the communication to promote internet banking was not well disseminated by the bank, several myths held on internet banking, customers also reported limited trust. On the strategies, improving on the user friendliness of the interface (e.g. responsiveness of the interface), improving on the information quality, sensitization about the benefits of internet banking, discounted charges on transactions.

Conclusion: The study concludes that there is great success in the adoption of internet banking. However, there were gaps in getting direct access to the bank’s information system, overall banking related costs were not reducing following introduction of Internet banking and adaptability in the internet banking services was not fully catered for as the business environment changed. The key challenges related to the perception that internet banking is risky, cases of data loss and or data transaction attacks, the communication to promote internet banking was not well disseminated by the bank.

Recommendations and further study: The study recommends that the bank management should consider improving on the ability of the bank to allow for clients getting direct access to the bank’s information system from anywhere. The bank IT staff should ensure that the internet connection is guaranteed always. The pricing of the products of the bank should reflect customer savings once they adopt them. The marketing team and the ICT team for Stanbic Bank should improve on their efforts to sensitize clients on internet banking. Further studies can be done on; Client demographics and internet banking usage among rural clients, ICT process redesign and adoption of laggard clients, management perception on the value for money on investing in banking ICT and success of internet banking.