Demographic Inequalities in Customers’ Adoption of Electronic Banking Services: Empirical Evidence from An Emerging Economy

Abstract

In Nigeria, bank customers are compelled to use the Automatic Teller Machine or mobile banking irrespective of their demographic profile. Hence, attributing the usage of ATM or mobile banking to age and level of education does not capture the peculiarities of emerging markets. This study investigated innovation adoption in the electronic banking world. It addresses the prevalent view in the literature, which spotlights age and education as the two strongest factors that influence customers’ adoption of technology. While this might be accurate in Western economies, applying this model in less advanced countries appears over-generalized. The objectives of the study were to verify the extent to which age and level of education significantly influence customers’ decisions to electronic banking services. A cross-sectional survey was carried out across some selected states in Nigeria, and validated copies of the questionnaire were distributed to respondents conveniently drawn from the sample frame across the various age and educational level categories within the study area. Both descriptive and inferential analyses of the data were performed, and binomial logistic regression was used to test the hypotheses. The study has not found any relationship between age and level of education and customers’ adoption of E-banking services in Nigeria, as there are diverse outcomes of customers’ level of usage of these facilities across the various demographic measures. The study, however, recommends that a comparative study be conducted to examine demographic influences and the performance of telephone and agency banking in a post-crisis era in emerging economies.