Assessing the Moderating Role of Trialability and Perceived Risk of E-Banking Adoption in an Emerging Economy

Abstract

Several researches have been undertaken to establish the influencing factors of electronic banking (e-banking) acceptance in Ghana. Nevertheless, none of these inquiries have investigated the influence of trialability (T) and perceived risk (PR) on e-banking actual adoption (AA) within the Ghanaian context. This inquiry assessed the moderating role of T and PR on customer’s intent to implement e-banking in Ghana. Data was obtained from 980 e-banking users in Ghana via convenience sampling using an online survey aided with structured/close-end questionnaires. The hypothesized associations were analysed via structural equation modelling (SEM). Results showed that effort expectancy (EE), facilitating conditions (FC), social influence (SI) and performance expectancy (PE) exhibited positive and significant influence on e-banking AA via T and lower PR, with EE revealing the strongest impact (β = 0.401), followed by PR (β = 0.310), T (β = 0.240), FC (β = 0.238), PE (β = 0.213) and SI (β = 0.202). This inquiry emphasizes the need for banks to concentrate on the design/development of useful, security-oriented and user-friendly e-banking products/services that recognizes diverse end user needs in order to improve e-banking AA in Ghana. This inquiry contributes to the e-banking literature by incorporating the uncharted/unexplored metric of T and PR into the unified theory of acceptance and usage theory (UTAUT-model) to evaluate its moderating influence on the association between behavioural intentions and e-banking AA in Ghana.