Mobile banking behavioral usage intention among South African Generation Y consumers

Mobile technology developments have altered the traditional financial services and retail banking sectors. Mobile banking is a popular and robust service delivery model, allowing consumers access to banking from anywhere and anytime. Irrespective of the benefits, usage intentions determine mobile banking success. As such, this paper attempts to test a structural model of the factors influencing mobile banking behavioral usage intention among a growing and essential segment of banking consumers, namely Generation Y. To this end, data were collected from a convenience sample of 334 South African Generation Y mobile banking consumers using a survey questionnaire. Using analysis of moment structures, the path analysis results indicated that perceived self-efficacy, behavioral control, structural assurance and trust have a statistically significant favorable influence on the target population's mobile banking attitude, which, in turn, has a statistically significant positive effect on their mobile banking behavioral usage intention. In addition, all the model fit indices of this original and unique structural model were indicative of acceptable fit (IFI, TLI, CFI and NFI > 0.90). South African retail banks can use the study's findings to add value to their mobile banking offering, especially when targeting the Generation Y banking cohort, which is believed to drive digital channels such as mobile banking.